


I know the sun will be rising back home

by orphan_account



Series: I've really got my heart out on my sleeve [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blow Jobs, Break Up, Daddy Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fist Fights, Getting Back Together, M/M, Makeup Sex, Obsessive Behavior, Overstimulation, Riding, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-07-27 15:03:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 47,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7623349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pushed by his father, John breaks up with Lafayette in a desperate bid for his approval and affection. Lafayette, reeling from the abrupt rejection seeks the comfort of his friends and meets a business partner of Thomas's: the one and only John André.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Lafayette wants the ground to open and take both him and John whole. He wants to get back on a plane and fly home immediately. He wants to be anywhere but here, right now, hearing these things from the man who professes to love him, but is determined to leave him.</i></p><p>  <i>He drops his hands at his sides and sinks down on the bed. How had this happened? “It was only two weeks,” he whispers to himself, staring at the floor.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note this story's position in the timeline of this verse: it's now part two, the referenced breakup in the wedding fic. 
> 
> The boys breakup but obviously get back together. There is no infidelity because they are broken up. John's father is the driving force behind it but he has no speaking parts.
> 
> Tags will be added as chapters are posted! If you see something that needs to be tagged, let me know.
> 
> Also!!! John André is played in my head by [Rafael Casal](http://www.instagram.com/rafaelcasal), so envision that beauty as you read.

John breaks up with him on a Tuesday morning. He’s been gone for two weeks, back home for Bastille Day and a series of photoshoots that his agent had booked him for. He’s only just dropped his bag down on the bedroom floor when he realizes that something is profoundly different. 

His heart starts to beat like a wild thing in his chest as he takes it in. John is leaning against the doorjamb, picking at his palm and biting his bottom lip; he hasn’t taken his shoes off.

“Where are your things?” he asks a little breathlessly. 

John tips his head toward the hallway. “Living room, mostly.” His voice is very quiet.

“Why?” Lafayette asks. He hasn’t moved except to turn around and now he feels like his body is being weighted down by cement blocks. His palms are clammy with sweat. “John?”

“I didn’t wanna tell you when you were gone,” he says, still not looking Lafayette in the eye.

“Tell me _what?_ ”

John bites at his lips and finally looks up, shaking his hair back over his shoulders. “I think we… we need a—I need a break.”

“A break? From me?” Lafayette asks, feeling like someone has sucked the air out of him. His chest aches and his knees go instantly weak. “What happen?” he asks, forcing himself to close the distance between them. “John, I… I’m sorry I left. I had to. I come home as soon as I can, yes? I am here. I didn’t—I did nothing bad in France. I swear to you.”

He tries to touch John’s face as he makes his pleas, but John pushes him away with a hand to either wrist.

“Gil, don’t,” he says softly. His eyes are damp.

“I do not understand. What happen? Did you…” he trails off. John meets his gaze; his eyes are profoundly sad. Lafayette touches his cheeks with both hands. “Did something happen? Did you meet someone? It was only two weeks, John, did you—“

“ _No_ ,” John says, taking hold of his wrists again, not letting go this time. He shakes his head. “I would never do that to you.”

“But you will break my heart with such ease?” Lafayette asks, his voice cracking with desperation. “What did I _do_ , John. I am sorry I left, _please_ ,” he says again.

John closes his eyes and shakes his head. “It’s not that, Gil. It’s not you. It’s… I need… some space.”

“Space for what?” Lafayette asks, sounding more like a sob than anything else. 

“I just need to think.”

Lafayette tugs his hands free and takes a step back, raking his fingers through his hair; his hands are shaking. He feels sick. “What bring this on?” he demands, his back still to John. “Why now? You tell me. I deserve to know this.”

John is silent for long enough that Lafayette turns to face him again, but keeps the distance. He looks so fucking sad.

“I just want to take a break. Not permanent, it doesn’t have to be—“

“What brought this, John? Tell me.”

John rubs at his arm. “My father just—“

The laugh that bubbles up in Lafayette’s throat is loud and ugly. “Are you kidding me?” he asks. “Your father tell you to do this and you do? After a year, you let him finally make you doubt me?”

“It’s not like that, Gil, please,” John says, pleading. “I just need a little space.”

“Why is that, John?” he asks, taking another step closer, finally feeling anger start to heat his blood. “What do you want to do with this space? Do you want to see others? You wish to fuck other men, is this it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you did not deny it,” Lafayette shoots back.

“Jesus, Gil,” John snaps. “It’s not like that. I just… need a little time to think about things.”

“And see other people, yes?”

John deflates. “Please don’t make this harder than it already is.”

Lafayette laughs again, but this time it’s choked; his eyes are getting wet. “Don’t make this hard for you?” he asks, swiping at his cheeks when tears begin to roll down them. “Don’t take my things and move from our bedroom? Don’t say I want to see other men? To fuck them? All to appease my awful father?”

“That’s not fair, Gil; this isn’t easy for me. You don’t understand.”

“Then make me!” Lafayette shouts, tears blurring his vision. “You make me understand, John! Tell me that you still love me but you want to break up with me, to fuck other men. Make me believe that!”

John takes a shaky breath and bites on his lip for a long moment. He shakes his head, wringing his hands together. “I do love you, Gilbert.”

“But you will leave me because your father want you to. After a year together, you will leave me.” John remains silent. “Why, John? Is it his money? I have money. I will give you anything that you want. _Anything_. Always.”

“It’s not,” John whispers. “You know it’s not money.”

“Tell me, then.”

“I want him to love me.”

Lafayette rubs at his eyes with the tips of his fingers until his head begins to hurt. “But my love means nothing in compare?” 

“I just need to _think_ , Gil. I need perspective, I need… everything went so fast and it’s… it’s good, it is but… Please, just give me a little time. I still love you.”

Lafayette wants the ground to open and take both him and John whole. He wants to get back on a plane and fly home immediately. He wants to be anywhere but here, right now, hearing these things from the man who professes to love him, but is determined to leave him.

He drops his hands at his sides and sinks down on the bed. How had this happened? “It was only two weeks,” he whispers to himself, staring at the floor.

John moves, comes further into the room, but Lafayette doesn’t want to feel his touch, which he is suddenly certain is coming. A comforting hand on his shoulder, a kiss to the top of his head, and some awful reassurances that John still loves him but is going to leave him regardless. He wants none of it.

“Leave,” he says quietly. John halts his step.

“What?”

“Take your things and go.”

His mind is racing. Lafayette’s name is still the only one on the lease. John has no right to stay if Lafayette tells him to get out. He can’t possibly argue it, not with what he’s telling Lafayette.

“Gil—“

“I said go. Now.” 

Lafayette is absolutely exhausted from the trip, the flight ridiculously long, and the anticipation of having John back in his arms and the overt rejection he’d been met with instead have wiped him out entirely. He wants nothing more than to crawl into bed and close his eyes, but knowing that John is here and does not want him any longer makes it unthinkable.

John doesn’t say anything further. He’s crying when he turns and heads down the hall toward the living room, but Lafayette doesn’t wait behind for anything else to happen. He grabs his keys and stuffs his feet back into his shoes, and leaves. 

 

\--

 

Lafayette doesn’t know where to go or what to do while he waits for John to clear his things out of the apartment. He doesn’t know how long it will take or where John will go in the meantime, though he assumes he will probably end up staying with Alexander until he finds something new. He’s half mad with the thought of it, of John packing his things to leave him, to leave their home. Lafayette finds himself a nearby café and curls himself into a plush armchair and waits. He tries not to cry.

Almost every one of Lafayette’s friends are also John’s friends. He doesn’t know who he can text or call right now that won’t possibly take John’s side on this. Or who won’t have known about this and not have told him. He is betrayed, he realizes, on every single front. 

He calculates the time difference as he plugs in his phone to charge, and calls the only person he can think of who is his friend only.

“Mon petite croissant!” Thomas greets him. “How was your flight, dear? Did you give the Big Apple a longing kiss from me?”

Lafayette leans his head against the chair back and closes his eyes. “The city misses you, she tell me when I land.”

“Ahh, tell her I will be home next week. No need to cry.”

“You are coming back so soon?” Lafayette asks, picking at the armrest. 

“Looks like,” Thomas confirms.

Lafayette nods to himself. “I will be happy to see you again.”

There is a moment of silence wherein Lafayette feels like he’s being read from a great distance. He closes his eyes again.

“What’s wrong? You sound… sad.”

Lafayette has only known Thomas for the past two weeks but he had felt an instant kinship with him, an American in Paris who speaks of politics like John and Alexander. It had to be some sort of cosmic intervention. They’d spent nearly every night drinking wine over dinner and trading stories. Lafayette loved him immediately and didn’t have to wonder if the fond feelings were returned. Thomas is his friend, he knows this without question, but he isn’t certain if he should burden him with his heavy, new heartache.

“Hey,” Thomas says after the silence stretches on for an uncomfortable time. “What happened? You okay?”

The whole story comes out in his native language, not wanting the people around him to understand it. Thomas listens and doesn’t interrupt, though the story is ridiculous and confusing; it’s a lot faster to say it all than he’d realized, though it weighs heavily in his heart. Lafayette rubs at his chest when he goes silent, his breathing wet and his heart thumping painfully against his ribs.

“His dad sounds like a fuckin’ prick,” Thomas finally says, though his voice is as soft as it is serious.

“John thinks that I would let him stay in our apartment? While he leaves me and sees others to appease his father?” Lafayette asks with a laugh that sounds more like a sob, and it embarrasses him. He turns his back more on the room, though he doesn’t actually think anyone is looking at him.

“You told him to get his shit and go, though,” Thomas says, confirming.

“Yes. I want him to be gone when I go back. How could he think I would… I can’t see him every day and know he is not mine.” Lafayette’s eyes begin to burn and he rubs them with his fingertips. “How can he do this?”

Thomas lets out a distressed sort of sound. “Shit, man, I wish I could help.”

“You have helped by listening to me.”

“Fuck that,” Thomas scoffs. “Look, why don’t you go to my place tonight? I’ll call the front desk, tell them you’re coming, they’ll let you into my apartment. Just stay there for the night.”

“I cannot do that, Thomas,” Lafayette says quietly.

“Yeah you can. Where are you? You said you live in Tribeca, right?”

“Yes,” Lafayette says. “Really, Thomas, it is fine. I—I cannot stay at your apartment… you barely know me.”

“I know you, man,” Thomas says. “My place ain’t far. Just get in a cab, forget the trains right now. 95 Wall. I’ll call and tell them you’re on your way. What have you got on?”

Lafayette rubs at his eyes. He considers telling Thomas that this is unnecessary, that he should just go home and sleep in his own bed. He is exhausted and he misses the smell of his own sheets, but, at the same time, that also means John. He misses the way his sheets smell of _John_. He misses sleeping in his bed beside _John_. All this time away, he has just missed his _John_.

He swallows the lump in his throat and says, “All right. Yes.” He looks down at himself. “Dark jeans. Light blue shirt.”

“du Motier, right?”

“Yes.”

“All right, I’m gonna call ‘em. Make yourself at home, all right? Order in. Take a shower, borrow some clothes, do whatever you need to do.”

Lafayette’s eyes burn a little and he rubs them. “Are you sure about this?” he asks.

“Just go, Laf. I got you, okay? You can stay as long as you want. I’ll be home on Sunday.”

“Thank you, Thomas.”

“You’re good, man. Text me when you get in, all right?”

Lafayette agrees and hangs up. His tea has long since gone cold but he drinks it anyway before collecting the cup and saucer and taking it to a dish bin near the trash. He walks a couple of blocks before he hails a cab, considering whether or not he actually wants to do this and go stay at Thomas’s apartment. But the thought of going home and facing John again so soon, maybe even watch him take his things and go, makes him feel sick.

He stops on the next street corner and holds his hand out.

The concierge at Thomas’s building greets him with a warm smile and his name, when he steps up to the desk. She takes him up to Thomas’s apartment and hands him a key and a business card. 

“Mr. Jefferson has instructed us to send you anything that you may need. Please give us a call if there is anything that we can do for you, Mr. du Motier,” she says politely.

He thanks her, hands her a twenty, and lets himself into Thomas’s apartment. He wants to marvel at the sheer opulence of the place, the flooring, the fixtures, the furniture, even the view, it’s all beautiful. He runs his hand over the back of the couch as he passes, the material smooth under his fingertips. He can see the open bedroom door at the opposite end from the kitchen and he heads that way.

Lafayette showers and digs through Thomas’s dresser until he finds sweatpants and a t-shirt that doesn’t smell like it’s been folded up and unused for too long. He pads around barefoot after he’s dressed, feeling much more human than he had before. He shoots off a text to Thomas, thanking him again. Thomas tells him to eat, get some sleep, and text him again in the morning.

His entire body is completely exhausted, but the idea of sleeping doesn’t seem to be in the realm of possibility. All he can think is _John left me_. It plays on loop while he makes himself an espresso on Thomas’s impossibly confusing coffee maker. He hears it over and over as he walks the stretch of floor-to-ceiling windows of the living room. He sees John standing in the doorway to their room, crying, saying _I love you_ but then leaving in the same breath. 

He sits on the couch for a moment but is too restless to remain. He paces the living room again and again, debating repeatedly about calling John. They have to work this out. They’ve been at this for a year, John loves him, he loves John, they fucking _live_ together, for god’s sake. He was happy, content with their life, when Lafayette left, and yet, somehow in two weeks, John’s father has talked him out of it.

How? 

“Fuck,” Lafayette whispers to himself, leaning against the window. His chest is tight, breathing difficult, like his lungs don’t want to expand fully. He ducks his head and tries to take a deeper breath, but it only makes his eyes sting.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he swears again, grabbing the cup and hurling it into the wall. It leaves a small, but deep dent, before clattering unbroken to the floor. He gestures uselessly, letting his hands flop against his thighs. 

He’s going to fucking cry.

In the kitchen, his phone starts to ring. He’s be lying if he said he didn’t rush to it, hoping to see John’s name on the screen, but it’s not; it’s Alexander. 

Lafayette truly debates not answering it for a moment. But he is certain that Alexander will know something about this and he needs to talk to _someone_. He feels so dumbfounded, like this can’t possibly be real, even as he slides his thumb across the screen to answer the call.

“Did you know?” he asks without prelude, voice thick in his throat.

Alexander is silent a beat before he replies. “He only told me a few days ago.”

Lafayette presses his back to the cold stainless steel of the refrigerator and slides down until he’s sitting, staring across at the cabinets. “Why did you not tell me?”

“Laf, I… fuck, I didn’t know what the hell he was doing. He barely spoke to me about it, and when he did, it didn’t make any fucking sense.”

“What did he say?”

Alexander sighs. “He said his dad was riding him really hard about living with you, again. I guess some shoot you just did in France got brought up—“ Lafayette assumes it was the one where he was shirtless on the beach with another male model on his knees before him, “—and, I don’t know. John just… he cracked, man.”

“Cracked,” Lafayette repeats. The word feels foreign in his throat. It rattles around in his chest like a loose stone.

Alexander sighs again. “You know what I mean. You know how his dad is.”

“John is gay. His father knows this.”

“Yeah, he does. But you know he doesn’t accept it, not really. He keeps hoping John’s gonna wake up, one day, overwhelmed with the desire to stick his face in a vagina,” Alexander tells him, sounding as harried as Lafayette feels by the whole thing.

“How could he leave me?” Lafayette asks quietly, more of himself than Alexander.

“Are you taking a break or did he really leave you?” Alexander presses gently.

Lafayette turns his head and looks out the window at the building next door. “What is the difference? He expected to stay in the apartment still. I tell him to pack and go.” His voice goes quiet at the end, his throat closing around the words, and he shuts his eyes against the dampness that wets his lashes. “And he went.”

“Oh, Laf…” Alexander says.

“I love him,” Lafayette whispers. “He is everything to me. How could he do this? He has broken my heart, Alexander.”

“I know, baby.”

Lafayette rubs at his eyes. “What do I do?”

Alexander takes an audible breath and lets it out slowly. “Just try to give him some time, Laf. He knows this is a mistake. Trust me.”

“What? I just don’t speak to him? While he goes out to look for someone new to appease his father?” Lafayette asks, thumping his head against the refrigerator door.

“No one will please his father.”

“You are not helping, Alexander.”

“Just give him a couple days. He’s gonna come to his senses.”

Alexander sounds so certain of this that Lafayette nods to himself and slumps, feeling exhausted all over again. He can’t bear to think of the alternative, that this is a permanent break between them.

“Where are you?” Alexander asks. “Do you wanna come over?”

“I’m fine. I am at a friend’s.”

“What friend?” he asks skeptically. 

Lafayette snorts and rubs at his eyes. “A new friend. Where is John? Did you invite him to stay with you? You have talked to him, yes?”

Alexander sighs. “Yeah, I talked to him. He’s staying at a hotel. I offered to let him crash here but—“ 

Lafayette cuts him off with an affronted sound. “He betrays me and you offer him your couch?”

“Don’t do that, Laf. You’re both my friends.”

“You were his friend first, I suppose,” Lafayette says, feeling terribly forlorn at the idea of losing not only John, but all of the friends he has made through him since they began dating. Alexander has become dear to him over the past year; he doesn’t want to go back to being so alone here.

“Hey,” Alexander interrupts his thoughts quietly. “We’re not kids you lost in the divorce.” 

“We?” Lafayette asks, exhaustion creeping into his voice.

“You know. Hercules and I. Everyone. We’re still your friends, no matter what happens between you and John.”

A tear skates down Lafayette’s cheek and he swipes at it. “Thank you, Alexander.”

“Don’t thank me, man. Look, just try to get some rest, okay? Call me if you need me or if you wanna come over or whatever. He’s gonna get over this.”

Lafayette wants to believe this with his entire being. He sucks at his bottom lip for a moment before he nods, more to himself than anything, and says, “Yes. All right.”

“Call me tomorrow anyway. Just let me know you’re okay.”

“All right,” he agrees again. “Goodnight, Alexander.”

“Goodnight, Laf,” Alexander says, his voice quiet and easy, like he’s afraid that Lafayette will break with the sound of it. 

He thumbs off his phone and lets his hand drop. There’s a low level of nausea twisting his stomach that has followed him ever since he left the apartment in a hurry hours before. The idea of eating anything makes him feel like he’s going to vomit. He wants so badly for John to call him, tell him that he’s made a terrible mistake, please come home, Gil, please. He wants so badly to call John and beg him to rethink this. He wants and wants, and his eyes well with tears that he rubs away with the grinding heels of his hands. And when he opens them, he’s still sitting on Thomas’s floor, alone. 

He pushes himself up and heads for the bedroom. It’s just after two in the afternoon when he climbs into bed and closes his eyes. He feels terribly young. For the first time in a long time, he wants to cry for his Grandmama.

 

\--

 

Wednesday comes and goes and Lafayette doesn’t leave Thomas’s apartment at all. Thursday passes with Lafayette drifting around the southern tip for a while, watching the ferries from Staten Island come in and go out, feeling the sticky summer breeze on his face and the humidity wilt his curls. Friday morning he considers going home. Thomas continues to assure him that he doesn’t need to go, but Lafayette feels like a coward, staying out of his own apartment, wearing someone else’s clothes, avoiding his own space because he’s afraid to go back and be alone. 

John hasn’t so much as texted him, although Alexander calls him every day to check in, and Hercules tries to coax him out multiple times a day for meals. Lafayette knows that they’re both concerned about him, but he can’t shake the simmering anger that they both knew about this and didn’t warn him.

Lafayette orders in Thai and eats alone at Thomas’s breakfast bar, with his back to the sprawling windows. He spends the afternoon clicking around on the desktop in the second bedroom that seems more for work than anything else. He tweets that he is back in the United States and he misses his home, and spends the next short while reading and liking his favorite replies.

He checks that John hasn’t unfollowed or blocked him, and he’s almost sick with the relief that he hasn’t.

Lafayette wakes up far too early Saturday morning, feeling more tired than when he went to sleep, his head pounding. It takes a moment to realize that the buzzing sound he’s hearing is his phone. He almost misses answering when he sees John’s name lit up on the screen.

“Hello?” he says, voice quiet and sleep-rough when he finally brings himself to speak.

“Where are you?” John’s asks, sounding worried, his voice taught with stress.

Lafayette blinks into the darkness of Thomas’s bedroom, leaning up on his elbow to look at the bedside clock. Thomas has blackout curtains and they’re entirely effective. “It’s five-thirty in the morning, John,” he says, slumping back down into the pillow.

“I know what time it is, where are you?” he asks again.

“Why?” 

“Because I’ve been waiting for you all fucking night and you never came home,” John snaps. “So where _are you?_ ” John doesn’t give him a chance to answer before he carries on, voice getting angrier and more frantic with every word. “Did you go out? Did you go home with someone? Is that where you’re at right now?”

Lafayette thinks John would deserve it if he hung up and turned his phone off. “That is what you are worried about?” he asks, letting the anger in his belly take over for him. “If I meet someone? Is that what you did, John? And now you accuse me of it?”

“No!” John shouts at him. “No, I fucking didn’t. I came home to talk to you and I’ve been waiting here all night. You haven’t been here all day. Where are you at? Did you—“ John cuts himself off and Lafayette listens to him breathe unsteadily until he continues on his own. “Did you go back?” he asks, voice suddenly quiet. 

“Did I go back where? To France?” Lafayette fills in the rest of the question for him.

“Did you?” John presses, voice still so small and afraid that Lafayette’s chest aches, the familiar need to comfort John when he’s like this is almost overwhelming. Lafayette is getting whiplash from the changes in his tone.

“Would it matter to you if I did?” Lafayette asks.

John lets out an indignant sound. “Of course it would. What kind of question is that? Tell me you’re still in New York.”

“I’m still in New York.”

He can hear John’s exhale of relief. “So… where? You didn’t go home with someone, did you?”

“No, John. Unlike you, I cannot turn my feelings off so quickly and move on.” Lafayette rolls onto his back, his eyes burning. He’s wanted nothing but to speak to John for the past few days and now that he is, all he wants to do is end this conversation. 

John lets out a frustrated sound. “I haven’t turned off anything. I haven’t—I love you, Gil, you have to know that.”

“What I know is that I go away for two weeks and you decide to break up with me and tell me nothing of it until I get home.” John is quiet so he goes on. “What happen, John? What did your father say to you?”

“God, Gil, if you only knew what it was like with him,” John says, voice wavering. “I lost my mom, he’s the only parent I’ve got—“

“I have neither,” Lafayette reminds him bitterly. “You have your father, who will love you even if you think he will stop if you don’t do this; we both know that he will. And you have your siblings. And you have me.”

“I know,” John whispers; he clears his throat before he speaks again. “I know, Gilbert. I know, I know, _fuck_. I just… please, you have to just give me this. Let me see where this takes him, how he reacts, I have to know. Things could be completely different between him and I if I just… do this.”

Lafayette rubs at his eyes, his fingertips coming away damp. “Why, John? Why is what we have not enough?”

“It is,” John insists.

Lafayette shakes his head against Thomas’s pillow. “Clearly not.” He takes a breath and lets it out slowly, trying to organize his jumbled thoughts before he speaks again. “I cannot stand aside while you date others in front of me. I thought it was—it’s women, isn’t it?” he asks. “Your father wants you with a woman. Is this what you are doing?”

“I’m not seeing _anyone_ , Gil. I didn’t do anything behind your back, I swear to god. I would never—“ he cuts himself off because he must know where Lafayette will take the statement. 

“You will not cheat on me but you will break my heart.”

“I love you,” John says, voice falling back toward a whimper. “Gil, please try to understand.”

Lafayette lies there, listening to John breathe, feeling his own heartbeat against his palm, pressed to his chest. He thinks about the past year, about finding John, loving him so instantly and easily. He thinks of everything they’ve done together, the fights with John’s father, moving in together, the way that their lives have become so entangled that Lafayette isn’t sure how he’s supposed to separate his from John’s and live it alone again. 

He doesn’t know that he can.

“Gil?” John asks, sounding so small and desperate that Lafayette’s heart gives a painful lurch in his chest.

He ends the call without saying another word. John doesn’t call back.

 

\--

 

Thomas comes home Sunday evening. Lafayette offers to meet him at JFK but Thomas shrugs it off. “You just be there lookin’ all good for me,” he says when he calls from baggage claim.

Lafayette orders in pizza (“big, greasy, gross, American pizza, Laf”) and waits like an excited puppy for Thomas to come through the door.

“Honey, I’m home,” Thomas crows when he bursts through the door. He’s got a leather crossbody bag over his chest and a rolling suitcase in each hand, but he drops it all to pull Lafayette into a hug the moment the door is closed and locked. 

Lafayette sinks into him, pathetically grateful for it. He hasn’t been touched hardly at all since he came back to the States, and the bone-weary ache of need eases with Thomas’s grip around his shoulders and hand scratching through his hair. 

“You good, my man?” Thomas asks, leaning back and taking him by the shoulders. “Losing weight already,” he tisks without waiting for a reply. “You sleeping all right?”

Lafayette huffs a laugh. “You sound just like my Grandmama did.”

“I’m a southern boy at heart,” Thomas tells him, picking up his crossbody again. “Comfort is our thing.”

Lafayette tries not to think of the sweet little accent that John tries to choke down because it embarrasses him when the miniscule twang in it becomes evident. He takes one of Thomas’s suitcases for him and follows him into the bedroom. 

“Aww, you did laundry,” Thomas says, tossing his bags down onto the freshly made bed. He stretches, popping his back and groaning with it, already toeing his shoes off and pulling his shirt up over his head. “I’m gonna shower. You’re staying to eat, right?”

“Of course,” Lafayette says, feeling the tug of a smile at his lips as Thomas disappears into the bathroom, leaving a trail of clothing behind him as he goes.

He collects the food when it arrives and has it set out on plates when Thomas emerges from the bathroom. His hair is wet, curls dripping onto his t-shirt, pajama bottoms long enough that they pool over his bare feet; his smile is tired but sincere when he passes by and claps Lafayette on the shoulder. He gets a beer for both of them, using the edge of the counter to knock the caps off. 

“You will damage your counter like that,” Lafayette says, accepting the bottle, already sweating under his fingers.

Thomas raps his knuckles against it a few times before he hops up to sit on it. “Granite. Better be tougher than that.”

“Well… how was your flight?” he asks.

Thomas gives him a look and Lafayette drops his gaze and picks at the crust of his pizza. 

“Don’t do that shit, tell me how you’re feeling or whatever. You talk to him?” Thomas asks, taking a drink of his beer that drains half the bottle before setting it down to pick up a slice of pizza.

“He call me yesterday. Very early in the morning. Accused me of being at home with someone else.” Lafayette lets out a disgusted sound. “As if I could ever.”

Thomas hums quietly to himself and turns his head to look out the window at the building next door. The sounds of traffic aren’t very audible up here, the glass expertly soundproofed against it, but Lafayette still thinks he hears a siren off in the distance. Or perhaps it would be closer. He doesn’t know.

“What are you gonna do?” Thomas asks eventually, taking another drink.

Lafayette shrugs. He’s not at all hungry; he pushes his plate away and reaches for his beer. “I don’t know. I want him to come to his senses and come back to me. I cannot stand to think of him with someone else. With some woman.”

Thomas looks at him. “He likes women too?”

“No, John is gay. This is what his father wants. Henry hates me.”

“Henry? Laurens, right?”

Lafayette raises his eyebrows. “Yes?”

“Senator?”

“You know him?” Lafayette asks, feeling suddenly confused.

Thomas rolls his eyes and hops off the counter, moving to the refrigerator to get another beer, though his first isn’t fully gone yet. “Yeah, I know him. You talked about him before but you never said his name, I didn’t realize.” He pops the top off this beer the same way he had the others. “I tried to get his prime opponent elected over him, last time around. Can’t stand the guy.”

“You are from South Carolina?” Lafayette asks, leaning back against the counter. He can’t pretend to understand too much about American politics but he tries to keep what John tells him straight in his head.

“Nah, man, Virginia. Charleston. But I know a lot of guys from his circle.”

“So you… you run for office in the past?” Now that Lafayette is thinking about it, he’s not actually certain what it is that Thomas does. He knows they’ve discussed their careers while they were in Paris. But they were also drunk at the time and Lafayette doesn’t remember much of those nights.

“Technically, I’m a farmer.” Lafayette blinks and then he can’t manage to stop the laugh that bursts out. He claps a hand over his mouth immediately after, fearing offense, but Thomas just laughs back. “I know. Me, right? It’s a whole thing with my family,” he says, waving his hand as if to fan away the backstory. “I keep an eye on it but I don’t get my hands dirty. Not important.”

Lafayette can feel his face scrunching in confusion. “So you… own a farm, then?”

“My family does. Has for generations. I got the hell out of dodge the first chance I could. I’ve never had a taste for it. I prefer putting my money elsewhere,” Thomas explains.

“Like?”

“Investments mostly. I bankroll candidates I like who might keep me in mind if I ever need a favor.”

Lafayette folds his arms loosely across his chest. “I don’t care much for politics. Too dirty.”

Thomas shrugs. “I probably should have followed that path myself but I didn’t. Now I just fund the guys with similar interests to protect my own. Other farmers, you know. The little guy.”

Lafayette snorts but it’s fond. “You are hardly a little guy, I think.”

“Remember where you come from, my friend,” Thomas says, handing Lafayette his abandoned beer. 

“Did you go to university here in New York?”

“University of Virginia,” Thomas says. “Founded by an ancestor, free ride. Got to follow my dream. Very stereotypical.” At Lafayette’s raised eyebrows he fills in the blank. “Architectural design.”

Lafayette rolls that over in his head a few times. “I would not have expected that.”

“I’m a natural wonder, what can I say?” Thomas picks peperoni off of Lafayette’s pizza slice and eats it. “Anyway, don’t think you’re distracting me from talking about your boy.” Lafayette drops his gaze to his feet. “His daddy tells him to break up with you and he does? Just like that? You gonna take that lying down or go fight for the little weasel?”

“John is not—“ Lafayette cuts himself off and rolls his shoulders, trying to release the tension there. “It is very complicated for him. His father wishes John to be straight. Now he wants to pretend to appease him, I think?”

Thomas rolls his eyes again, wiping his hands off against his thighs. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t know what to do but let him do as he pleases and then hope he will return to me when he realizes it is a mistake.” It sounds pathetic, even to Lafayette’s own ears and he can feel the heat of embarrassment crawling up the sides of his neck. 

Thomas raises his eyebrows at him. “Really, man? Really?”

“This is hard for me, Thomas,” Lafayette defends. “I love him. He loves me too, I know he does. This is a mistake and he knows it is. I just have to let him see that and then he will come back to me.” His voice goes weak at the end and he forces himself to shut his mouth, stop talking. He sets his beer aside again and tightens his arms around himself as his eyes blur with tears.

“Hey, okay, I’m sorry,” Thomas says. Lafayette hears the clink of his bottle against the countertop before he’s enfolded in Thomas’s arms. Lafayette has curled in on himself enough that he can almost nudge up under Thomas’s chin. He doesn’t let go of his own arms but he sinks into Thomas’s grip anyway.

A hand runs up and down his back and it feels good; he’s never been so touch-starved before. 

“I know you love him. I get it. I really do. But, man, you gotta respect yourself. You can’t just back away and say _okay, go fuck a bunch of chicks until you realize you only want my dick_ and then be there waiting for him when he comes back.” Lafayette squeezes his eyes shut against the burn of tears and presses his face into Thomas’s shoulder.

“So what do I do then?” he asks, voice wavering in his throat. “I cannot stop him. I can only break up with him and I do not want that. If I give him this, then he will come back.”

Thomas exhales against his temple, blowing flyaway curls wild for a moment. 

“Is that what you want? Let him walk all over you and your heart and then just come back like it didn’t happen?”

Thomas waits for him to respond. “No, it isn’t.”

“You can’t just let him do whatever he wants. His dad’s an ass and this is an obnoxious attempt to appease him. You deserve better than this, Laf,” Thomas says, his hand still rubbing at Lafayette’s back through his shirt.

Lafayette’s mind is reeling, his head aching. He’s too tired, too drained from his emotions to process this. He doesn’t know what to do, what to say to John, how far he can truly push back until John just does what he wants anyway. At least this way, he thinks he will get John back when he’s done acting foolish. If he shoves him too hard, he will lose that and he can’t. He just can’t do that. 

He lets out a breath that sounds more like a sob, muffling it against Thomas’s chest, and Thomas squeezes him tighter. He doesn’t let go.

He stays the night with Thomas, sleeping beside him in bed. It’s the best night sleep he’s had since before he left for France. In the morning he thanks Thomas over coffee and changes into the clothes he wore over almost a week before, and heads home.

It’s quiet in the apartment. Not a thing is out of place in the living room, still looking lived-in and comfortable. But the bedroom is half-empty, devoid of almost everything of John’s. His hands shake and he braces himself on the dresser to steady himself. He closes his eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. He hasn’t heard from John since he called that last morning and he tries to put it out of his head, tries not to wonder desperately where John is, who he’s with, what he’s doing. John is demanding space and Lafayette has decided to give it to him. His heart can’t stand to think what may happen if he doesn’t bend to John’s wishes.

When he opens his eyes, he looks to the cluster of picture frames in the corner of the dresser. There is one of a toddler John and his mother, one of Lafayette sitting on his grandmother’s lap, an old picture of his father in military regalia, and one of John perched on his back, posing with his arms flexed while Lafayette holds onto his legs, laughing. He stares at it a moment, remembers the day, late last summer when that was taken. There should be another behind it, slightly bigger, a candid of the two of them talking together. But it’s not there. John must have taken it with him when he packed.

Lafayette’s eyes burn anew. He reaches for the photo of the two of them that remains and lays it down flat on the dresser.

 

\--

 

“Laf.”

“Hmm?”

Something hits his face and he jumps, looking back at Alexander. He’s holding another fry, ready to send it across the table at him.

“Where you at, man?”

“I am here,” Lafayette tells him, sitting up straighter and flicking the fry off of his lap onto the floor.

“You are anywhere but here,” Hercules tells him, voice not unkind. He’s keeping Lafayette wedged into the booth at the diner they’ve met at for lunch so that he can’t leave. Not that he would. This is the most social interaction he’s had outside of daily texts from Thomas in over a week. 

“I am tired,” Lafayette says, resting his elbow on the table and his cheek in his palm; he looks at Hercules’s kind face and can’t help but offer a tiny smile. “It is difficult to sleep alone again; I am always cold.”

Alexander coughs, an uncomfortable noise, and then jerks when Hercules kicks him under the table. 

“Get a heating blanket,” Alexander offers, glaring at Hercules. “I’ve got one. Works wonders in the winter.”

Lafayette looks away from them, glancing out the window at the passersby on the sidewalk. “I am fine,” he says absently. “I will get used to it.”

When he looks back again, Alexander and Hercules are having a conversation entirely through facial expressions and eyebrow movements. They stop when they notice that his attention is back on them once more.

“I am fine,” he says, stealing a fry from Alexander’s plate. “You do not have to be so easy with me.”

Alexander slumps with a sigh. “We’d just hoped you’d be… you know, better.”

“It has barely been two weeks. I am not better,” Lafayette says, unable to stop the bitterness from creeping into his voice. “I am managing.”

“You’re fine, man,” Hercules says, gripping his shoulder and squeezing. “We just wanna get you out of the house, you know? Make sure you’re eating.”

“Thomas sends food to my apartment.”

Alexander’s face bunches. “That’s weird, Laf. He’s weird.”

“You don’t know him,” Lafayette reminds him. “He is a good man.”

“Why don’t you invite him along some time?” Hercules asks. “Let us meet him. You spend more time with him than you do with us.” There’s a mild accusation there but Lafayette doesn’t deny it.

“That is because he does not speak to John, as my other friends do. And there is no chance that I will see him when I am with Thomas.”

Alexander blinks first at him and then at Hercules. “We wouldn’t—Laf, come on, we wouldn’t bring him along.”

“We go the same places that John goes, he may be here.”

“I think John is hiding from you,” Hercules says. Then, “Ow, don’t kick me, you little fucker.”

“Don’t tell him that.”

Lafayette feels a familiar curl of agitation in his belly. “Why, Alexander? Because you think I should not know how he is feeling? What he is doing? You are still keeping his secrets?”

“No, Laf, you know he’s still my friend too.” Alexander doesn’t sound defensive but it still grates at Lafayette’s nerves to know that John is still present in his friends’ lives after he’s torn himself out of Lafayette’s. 

“Yes, as I am so aware,” he says, turning to push at Hercules’s arm. “Let me out.”

“Laf—“

“Now, or I will fucking scream.”

Hercules slides out of the booth and stands there while Lafayette fumbles for his wallet. 

“Don’t do that, Gil,” Hercules says, voice quiet and serious. “We’re worried about you.”

“You worry about John while he is the one who wanted this,” Lafayette snipes, tossing a bill down on the table. He can’t see the denomination through his tear-blurred vision, so he hopes that it’s enough to cover his meal. “I cannot do this,” he says, addressing the both of them. “I want you to leave me alone.”

At this, Alexander stands as well, reaching for him with both hands. “Laf, please, don’t say that. Don’t go. We won’t talk about John, okay?”

Lafayette shakes his head. He can’t sit here with these two and talk like everything is fine. He is not fine. He is so very not fine. 

“I must go,” he says, tucking his wallet away and turning on his heel. He hears his name called but he doesn’t stop walking.

It’s easy to disappear once he’s outside. He hurries along for a moment, fearing that either Hercules or Alexander will follow him. He weaves in and out of people and crosses streets that he shouldn’t, dodging cars. He walks until a sheen of sweat has dampened his forehead and his breathing is coming just a little bit too fast. He trudges down to a subway platform without checking to see where the trains go, and steps off to the side, just inside the turnstiles to clear his head. 

He pulls out his phone before he can think better of it and shoots off a text to Thomas, asking if he can come over. His phone starts to ring and he nearly drops it in surprise. Hercules’s name is glowing up at him and he hesitates long enough that it nearly goes to voicemail before he answers.

“What?”

“John’s got a girlfriend.”

Lafayette’s knees almost give out under him. He slumps back against the wall, as out of the way as he can be, and tries to breathe as his world grinds to a halt.

“What?” he asks.

“Alex didn’t want to tell you, he didn’t want to upset you. I didn’t really want to tell you either, but I gathered that you haven’t talked to him since then and… look, man, just come back okay? Don’t go hole up in your apartment and not come out again. Let us help you through this shit.”

“He has a girlfriend? How— _who?_ ” the demand is breathy. His mind is racing so fast he can’t grab onto any one thought long enough to focus. He closes his eyes and rubs his forehead.

Hercules sighs. “I don’t know her. I think her name is Martha. I don’t know how he met her or where she’s from, I’ve never seen her, but John told Alex and now I’m telling you.”

“She is—they are dating? You are sure?”

“Laf, come back, okay?”

“Tell me, please.”

“Gil,” Hercules says, voice gentle and serious. “Listen to me. John ain’t worth this, if he’s gonna do this to you.”

Lafayette fumbles to end the call and shove his phone in his pocket, even as it vibrates with a text from Thomas. He looks up at the letters on the sign above and heads for the train. His heart is pounding painfully in his chest and his hands shake until he pins them between his knees. 

John is dating a woman. John has a _girlfriend_. A girlfriend named Martha. He has told his friends about her. He’s really doing this. John is really doing this to him.

Vaguely, Lafayette feels like he should be crying. He wants to cry. But his eyes are dry and he gets off the train without trouble. He follows the flow of people up to the street and blinks against the humidity, the blinding light. He staggers down the sidewalk, feeling dazed and out of body. This doesn’t feel like it could possibly be happening to him, couldn’t possibly be real.

John has followed through, John has left him, has gotten a girlfriend to please his father. 

His chest is tight and his lungs ache when he takes a deep breath. He pulls out his phone when he hits Wall Street and ignores the texts from Alexander and Hercules, and reads the confirmation from Thomas. He hadn’t thought to do it before; he’s relieved that Thomas is home because he isn’t sure he’d make it back to his apartment on his own.

Thomas opens his door and his face falls almost instantly. Lafayette doesn’t know what he looks like right now, but it doesn’t surprise him that it’s worrisome.

“John has a girlfriend named Martha,” he says, his voice rougher than he’d imagined it would be.

Thomas pulls him inside without a word.

It’s August first. One year ago today, John moved in with him.

 

\--

 

Lafayette sets his phone on Thomas’s kitchen counter and lets it die. They order in and Thomas lets him drink his wine but doesn’t allow him to get drunk. Lafayette isn’t even sure that he wants to get drunk but it would be nice to have the option. 

He’s drinking a bottle of water while Thomas scrolls through Netflix suggestions, seemingly aimlessly. 

“Just pick,” Lafayette says, nudging him with his foot.

Thomas hums, glancing down at his phone screen for some countless time, before he hands the remote to Lafayette and stands. “You pick. I’ll be right back.”

Lafayette selects a documentary about sharks and drops the remote down beside him, nestling further back into the pillows. It’s a while before Thomas returns, phone still in hand, looking fairly pleased with himself.

“What was that about?” Lafayette asks. 

“Sorry about that, duty called” he says, climbing back over Lafayette’s legs to settle down on the cushion next to him; he fits his arm behind Lafayette’s head and scratches his fingers against his scalp.

“It is work?”

Thomas hums a little. “Yes and no. I don’t really have a job, per se, but it was someone looking for my endorsement.”

“Will you give it?”

“Probably. I met this guy when I was in London a couple years ago, good dude, needs help getting his feet wet in the American market,” Thomas explains.

“He is a British politician?” Lafayette asks, confused.

Thomas shakes his head, twirling Lafayette’s curls between his fingers. “Nah, speech-writer. Needs to be introduced to the right people.”

“I see,” Lafayette says, nudging up closer to Thomas. He’s tired, his eyelids are starting to droop, and Thomas is warm. He’s comfortable for the first time in a long while. 

“I’m gonna bring him to a fundraiser next week. You should come with me.”

Lafayette pinches his eyes shut. “I do not care for politics, Thomas.”

“You need social interaction. Trust me, I’ve been down the broken heart road before; it’ll do you some good. Plus, you’ll get to see people kissing my ass all night long, and that’s always the highlight of my week.”

When Lafayette laughs, Thomas presses a kiss to the top of his head. He feels warm and safe and good, even though his heart is still aching. He trusts Thomas so he nods a bit and lets his eyes close again.

“All right.”

“Good man.”

 

\--

 

The function that Thomas insists that he attends takes place in a rented-out hotel bar downtown. He tells Lafayette to dress like he’s looking to get laid instead of to impress, so Lafayette goes in dark, tightly fitted jeans, and a black v-neck shirt. He wears the cologne that John got him for Christmas and tries not to think too much about it as he pulls his hair up into a high bun. He’s running late, so he foregoes contacts in favor of his glasses and heads out the door, stuffing his phone and wallet into his pockets.

He takes a cab and he uses the time that he’s stuck in traffic to respond to Alexander’s text from the day before. He hasn’t spoken to either him or Hercules since the revelation about John’s new girlfriend had come to light. Conversation between them still hasn’t evolved much beyond pleas for forgiveness that Lafayette doesn’t actually want but is still too bitter to accept.

Instead, he tells Alexander that he is headed to a party and that he’ll speak to him soon. His phone buzzes with a response almost as soon as he locks it, but he doesn’t read the text.

The scene inside is not one that Lafayette is accustomed to seeing much anymore. Thomas holds court with a few men that look almost double his age, grinning and laughing at everything he says. He slips in, mostly unnoticed, after having his name checked off a list, and makes his way to the bar.

He taps a twenty into the empty glass on the counter before he orders and the bartender pours him top shelf vodka and cranberry juice, handing it over with a smile. Lafayette winks at her and settles down on a cushioned stool with his back to the bar. 

Thomas notices him after a few minutes and makes his way over. 

“You made it!” he says, clapping both hands down on Lafayette’s shoulders. He goes on before Lafayette can speak. “Welcome, welcome, darlin’. Come with me, let me introduce you to some people.”

Lafayette hardly finds it necessary, but he follows anyway. He promised Thomas he would come so that he could distract himself from the arrow in his chest, and he would be lying to himself if he said that thought didn’t appeal to him at least a little. He stays tucked up under Thomas’s arm as he introduces him to a few people whose names he forgets immediately. He shakes hands and smiles, kisses the knuckles of the few women that he’s made acquaintances with. He sips at his drink and thinks longingly of the bar stool he’d abandoned.

He gives Thomas’s admirers a few minutes of his time before he holds up his empty glass and excuses himself. Thomas pats him on the back and lets him go. 

There is a pianist in the front corner, near the door, and Lafayette makes his way to that side of the bar. If nothing else, he can drink and listen for a while. He orders another and the bartender fills it quickly, smiling at him once more. He’s just settled in to drink it when a London accent sounds off to his right. 

He turns and looks at the man standing between the vacant stool beside him and the next. He’s wearing fitted, black slacks and a black button down with a charcoal waistcoat; his dirty-blonde hair is flipped over in an expert swoop, thick-framed glasses pushed up into it. He’s turning his phone over and over in his hand as he orders a beer. He’s unfairly attractive.

He turns and catches Lafayette’s gaze the second the bartender sets his beer down and he smiles. Lafayette looks back at the pianist, his cheeks heating as he takes another drink to distract himself.

“Not awful for Thursday evening entertainment, eh?” the man asks, sitting beside him, mirroring his position with his back to the bar.

Lafayette looks at him. His eyes are bright hazel, his lashes long and dark. There are freckles scattered over his nose, trailing off onto his cheeks, and a couple days worth of stubble on his face. It makes Lafayette’s throat go dry.

“Not bad, no,” Lafayette says, voice so quiet that he’s unsure that he’s actually been heard.

“All right, then, mate?” the man asks. “You look a tad woozy.”

“Just tired,” Lafayette says, clearing his throat. “Are you Thomas’s… friend?” he asks, attempting weakly at conversation.

Luckily, the other man smiles at him and holds out his hand. “I believe that would be me. John André.” 

Of course his name would be John, Lafayette thinks. He shakes his hand anyway. “Gilbert. But most everyone call me Lafayette.”

“You’re the one he met in Paris?”

“Ahh, yes,” he says, turning a bit to set his glass down on the counter. He doesn’t trust his hands, suddenly feeling shaky. He hasn’t felt this awkward socially in too long to remember.

“Good to meet you,” this John says, sounding sincere.

Lafayette wipes his hands against his thighs as subtly as he can. “You too.”

This man is striking with his bright eyes and soft-looking hair. His smile is kind and his hands are big. Lafayette feels dazed by the instant surge of attraction; he hasn’t felt anything like it since he met his John. It feels wrong to even think it.

“You wish to become a speech writer, Thomas says?”

This John seems pleased that he knows that, smiling and showing off his perfect teeth. “That is the dream, as it were.” He takes a drink of his beer before he follows Lafayette’s example and places it down on the bar top. He leans closer to be heard over the din of the room. “Am I making you uncomfortable? I can leave, if you want. I just saw you when you came in and I wanted to say hello.”

Lafayette swallows to wet his dry throat. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “Stay. I merely…” he trails off and then sighs. There’s no point in pretending like he isn’t still hung up on his John to spare some stranger’s feelings, no matter how pretty and polite said stranger is. 

“You remind me a little of my ex,” Lafayette says quietly. “Not much physically, only your smile and your freckles.” 

This John touches the side of his nose and a tiny smile follows. “That’s bad I take it?”

“Non, you are… you are very lovely. You have his name as well.”

“You can call me André, if you’d like,” this John says without missing a beat. “If I call you Lafayette, you can call me by my last name. Unless—I mean, I will leave you alone, if you wish.”

Lafayette takes a moment to consider it. To _really_ consider it. It’s been four weeks since his John had walked out on him without so much as a backward glance. Four weeks of restless sleeping, terrible appetite, and far too much crying on Thomas’s shoulder. Four weeks of only one phone call between them, and radio silence otherwise. Four weeks that he’s been alone. The more he pulls it all together and thinks about it, the more he suddenly realizes that he doesn’t want to feel like this anymore. Why should he be the only one whose life feels stuck, while John has thrown him aside so easily and now distracts himself with others?

This John gets to his feet and reaches for his beer, evidently taking Lafayette’s silence as a rejection, though he doesn’t look upset as he pats his shoulder with the other hand.

Lafayette takes hold of his wrist as the touch falls away and this John stops and looks at him, one of his eyebrows disappearing into the falling fringe of his hair as he turns back. 

“I’m not over him but I am trying to be,” Lafayette says quietly. “If that does not make you want to leave, I would like you to stay.”

This John looks at him for a moment before he sits back down on the stool, facing Lafayette. He places a hand on Lafayette’s thigh, near his knee, and sets his drink down again. “Well, I’m not looking to marry you,” he says, “maybe just talk. See how it goes, yeah?”

Lafayette nods. “Yes, that—yes. André?”

The other man nods at him and Lafayette offers a tentative smile in return.

 

\--

 

They move to a high-top table where they can sit away from the music and talk. André is from London, born, raised, and educated, and he’s in New York now to find his way into the world of political speech writing. His accent is smooth and relatively easy to understand. Lafayette hasn’t had much practice in listening to and deciphering anything outside of American accents in a year, but he doesn’t struggle much with André. 

Lafayette is surprised at how easy it is to relax around him. He’s got an infectious sort of smile and he carries the conversation when Lafayette finds himself losing it. 

They’ve been talking and drinking until well past midnight before André’s hand inches across the table toward his. He settles his fingertips between Lafayette’s but doesn’t make a move to otherwise take his hand. Lafayette doesn’t shift into it but he doesn’t move away either. His stomach is twisting anxiously.

“So, would you give me your number, then, if I asked?” The pianist is long gone by now so it’s easy to hear and unmistakable when he asks.

Lafayette glances down at their hands for a moment before he nods, reaching to fish his phone out of his pocket. André squeezes the back of his hand before he moves for his own. After he calls André’s phone and saves his number as a new contact, Lafayette realizes the time.

“I had better go,” he says, sliding off of his stool; André follows suit.

“Are you walking? André asks.

“I will take the train,” Lafayette tells him, patting himself down for his wallet. 

“Can I walk you there?”

Lafayette looks at him. André is a little shorter than him but not by much, and that’s different, to not have to look down very far to make eye contact. André puts on his glasses and runs a hand through his hair, shaking it back into place with an easy, practiced move that seems second nature. He doesn’t look expectant, only hopeful, and that’s why Lafayette agrees. 

He ducks out without saying goodbye to Thomas, and André follows behind him. The nearest station isn’t far, only a few blocks, but André keeps pace beside him, and Lafayette finds himself walking slower than he normally would if he were alone. André has his hands stuffed into his pockets, keeping his distance.

“I’m going to text you tomorrow,” he says conversationally. “You think you might actually text me back or were you just being nice?” Lafayette looks at him and André grins. “You don’t have to spare my feelings, you know.”

“I would not,” Lafayette tells him.

“I bet that you would,” André says. “Honestly, I get the ex situation. I don’t know the details but I know that moving on isn’t the easiest thing. If you’re not ready or not interested, I won’t be angry about it.”

Lafayette slows down as they approach the subway stairs and moves off to the side so that he’s standing close to the nearest building and out of the way of the flow of foot traffic. André follows him, hands still in his pockets, looking up at him through his ridiculous glasses. 

“If I told you about John—my John, you might not feel that way. That you want to know me right now.”

“I’d listen,” André says, “if you wanted to tell me, anyway.” He shrugs and pulls a hand free to run through his hair again. “Up to you.”

It’s that, the lack of pressure, the easy out that André offers him, that makes Lafayette reach out, take him by the cheeks and pull him forward. He moves slowly enough that André brings his hands to cup his elbows and tilts his head up for it, eyes going closed before Lafayette’s do. He kisses him, soft and simple, the tiniest hint of stubble and the easy press of their lips together for a long moment, before he breaks it.

Lafayette’s instant reaction is to panic. He doesn’t know why he did that besides the simple fact that he just wanted to. He doesn’t know if that’s a good enough excuse. He drops his hands and opens his mouth to apologize, but André beats him to speaking.

“That was nice.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” André says, letting his hands fall away entirely; he tucks them back into his pockets. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?” he asks, keeping it a question. Lafayette is sure it’s because of the hesitation etched into his face.

He wanted to, he reminds himself. He did it because André is nice and attractive and he just wanted to kiss him, so he did. And André obviously didn’t mind.

He clears his throat and nods. “Yes, I will—I will text you.”

“Good,” André says, reaching over to squeeze his bicep. “Have a good night, Gilbert.”

“You too.”

André turns to walk back up the street and Lafayette forces himself to head down the steps to the train platform. His mouth tingles from the barest scratch of André’s stubble, and isn’t that a new sensation, he thinks. He keeps a fingertip pressed to his bottom lip the entire ride home.

 

\--

 

Lafayette wakes to his phone ringing and a pounding on his door. He blinks blearily into the darkness of his room and fumbles for his phone. He sits up before he’s even fully awake, trying to focus on the screen, too bright for his unadjusted eyes. It goes dark in his hand but the knocking continues. 

He kicks free of his covers and stumbles down the hall.

“ _All right! Hold on a fucking moment!_ ” he shouts, only registering after the words have left his mouth that they were in French. He trips over his own shoe, kicked off just inside the door when he came home, and he swears, catching himself on the wall.

He yanks open the door without looking to see who it is, and blinks against the harshness of the hall light. Thomas is standing there, holding his phone in one hand, with the other raised to knock again.

“The fuck are you here?” Lafayette asks, grasping for his English.

Thomas elbows his way passed Lafayette into his apartment and toes out of his shoes. He smells like a brewery. Lafayette closes the door behind him, rubbing at his face with both hands.

“You left without saying goodbye, you know? Incredibly rude. Especially considering you were drinking on my dime.” Thomas shrugs out of his suit jacket and tosses it at Lafayette. 

“What are you doing here? Did something happen?” Lafayette asks, balling his jacket up and throwing it on the floor. 

“You ass,” Thomas says, reaching up to unknot his necktie but making no move to retrieve his jacket. “I saw you leave with John André.” Lafayette freezes as Thomas looks at him, eyebrows raised and a smarmy grin in place. “What’s that about? He get y’all a room? Lil’ handie in the bathroom?”

Lafayette turns and heads back down the hallway to his bedroom without a word. 

“Aww, baby, don’t be like that!” Thomas calls, following behind him, shedding clothes along the way.

“Why are you not at _your_ apartment?” Lafayette groans, climbing back under his twisted sheets, tugging them up the bed and slumping back against his pillows. 

“I’m drunk and my apartment is a train change away from here,” he says, lifting up the covers on the other side of the bed (John’s side, his traitorous mind reminds him) and sliding in.

“The couch is free,” Lafayette mumbles, his back to Thomas.

“So is your bed. After all the times you’ve slept in mine—“

“Yes, yes,” Lafayette says, flapping a hand back at him. “’s fine. Please sleep, I am very tired.”

Thomas settles behind him; when he speaks there’s a grin in his voice. “From that rough fuck in the bathroom?” Lafayette kicks his foot out and catches Thomas in the thigh. “Rude,” he says, “so rude. Come on, tell Uncle Thomas all about it.”

“You can sleep in my bed only if you be quiet and you never call yourself that again,” Lafayette grumbles. “I will tell you about André tomorrow. We did nothing.”

Thomas sighs and shifts around again, getting comfortable, but he stays quiet otherwise. Lafayette is so near to sleep that it only takes a moment for him to reach the threshold again. He’s nearly drifted off, feeling a warm curl in his belly when he thinks about the dry press of André’s lips against his, when Thomas murmurs quietly, “G’night, Laf.”

He doesn’t dream.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't think of any warnings that need to be stated beforehand besides the usual about John's relationship with his father, so if you see anything that needs to be tagged, let me know. Enjoy!
> 
> And listen to 1D's "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" because I imagine that's what John's listening to constantly now.

Thomas goes home in the late morning with a headache and Lafayette manages to avoid speaking about André entirely. He rocks his phone back and forth, on its side, against the tabletop while he picks at the granola covering his yogurt. He doesn’t know if he should wait for André to text him or if he should fortify himself and reach out first. 

Every time he unlocks his phone, he thinks of John, and a sickening tightness pulls at his belly, telling him he’s betraying him. 

And then he remembers that John has a girlfriend now, and he wants to slam something against a wall.

A notification comes through as he’s staring at a blank text box. It’s from André. Lafayette’s heart instantly picks up its pace as he switches screens to read it.

> André (11:47): Too early to call?

Lafayette stares at it for a minute. The way his heart thumps in his chest leans more toward the excitement of reciprocated attraction than anxiety over his own John. He closes his eyes a moment and tells himself that he has to stop thinking of John Laurens that way. John Laurens is making it a point to not be his. John Laurens is no longer his. 

Trepidation sours the little thrill André’s text had given him. He rubs at his eyes with his fingertips before he focuses on his phone with new determination and taps out a response.

_You can call._

He hits send and watches as its status changes to _delivered_. Then he stares at it and reads it over again and again. Is it too blunt? Does it sound too nonchalant? Aloof? He worries his bottom lip and reconsiders. He hasn’t met many people in his life who prefer to speak over the phone rather than text. Perhaps they should—

It begins to ring.

His palm is clammy when he lifts his phone to his ear and says, “Hello.”

“Good morning,” comes the response. The accent is almost jarring, almost as though he’d forgotten to expect it. “Did you sleep well?”

“Ahh, yes, thank you. Thomas, he came after. Woke me up. He is very loud when he is drunk.” Lafayette looks down at his bowl of yogurt and tells himself not to babble. His cheeks feel hot. 

André laughs warmly. “I have yet to see him drunk but he almost seems the type to cry. That or start hugging everyone.”

Lafayette grins and lifts his spoon, dragging it around in a circle. “I have not known him for too long, so he very well may burst into tears and a fit of hugging.”

“Hopefully not together.”

“He does sing, though.”

André barks out a loud laugh and it makes Lafayette smile, pleased at the reaction. “We shall have to see that live some time.”

“Now there is a date idea,” Lafayette says, setting his cheek against his palm and gazing off into the living room. The air conditioning is off and it’s already getting too hot to be comfortable. He makes a mental note to turn it on soon.

André hums a soft noise. “Would you like that, then?” he asks. “A date, I mean. With me, of course.”

Lafayette lets out a breath and closes his eyes. Like this, he still thinks that he can smell John’s designer cologne lingering in the air. “I think that I would,” he says quietly.

“But?” André asks gently.

“But I think you do not know well enough my situation. It would likely be too much to be an attractive quality in me. You would not like what you see,” Lafayette says. There’s no point in disguising the fact that he may not be ready for this, to move on so soon. He thinks perhaps André would appreciate knowing that beforehand.

There is a brief silence before André speaks again. “If I’ve pressured you, Laf, believe me, we don’t—“

“No, no,” Lafayette says, standing from the table and making his way to the thermostat. “That is not my meaning. I merely do not know if I am ready for this yet. My—the other John, that is… it pains me still,” he admits quietly.

The air conditioner kicks on immediately and Lafayette lowers himself down to sit on the cool hardwood floor of the hallway. He stretches his legs until his feet touch the opposing wall and spreads his toes out.

“How long has it been?” André asks carefully.

“Just over a month.”

André makes a sound Lafayette can’t interpret. “How long were you together?”

“A year. And four months.”

“Do you mind me asking what happened? You don’t have to tell me, if you’d rather not.” Again, it’s the suggestion, the offer of an ear, the willingness to listen and the lack of pressure that makes Lafayette want to connect with him. 

He taps the balls of his feet against the drywall a few times and organizes his thoughts. “John’s father wishes his son to be straight, despite having two other heterosexual sons and a daughter.”

“Well, that’s shit.”

“It is.” Lafayette tips his head back and stares up at the ceiling. “His father rejected him when he came out but he cares for John, in his own awful way, and he came around some. He is better but not enough. John lost his mother, he aches for his father’s approval and…” he trails off, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip. He has to stop speaking about John like this. It’s not his battle anymore.

“Don’t do that,” André says quietly. “Tell me, Laf.”

Lafayette closes his eyes and presses his toes against the wall. 

“He thinks that dating women will please his father. So he has met some woman named Martha and now he is with her. I don’t know how they met, his father probably,” he grumbles. “We have only spoken once since he left me. Now he acts as though I do not exist.” When he reaches up to rub his eyes, his fingers come back damp. He blinks hard to clear his vision.

“You don’t think it’ll last?” 

“I did not think so at first, but I can only assume things are fine. He must be satisfied to pretend. I cannot get over how easily he cast me aside.” His eyes are wet when he blinks. “Did he love me so little? Or even at all?”

“I’m sure he did, Laf.” And isn’t it strange to hear this from the man who is asking to take him out. These reassurances that John Laurens did, in fact love him once. 

He laughs quietly. “Listen to us. You should not have to say such things to me.”

“Someone needs to say them.”

“Why should it have to be you?”

“I’ve been heartbroken before, Laf. I’ve been where you are. No one wants to hear that they’ve loved in vain. This other John is a fool to have let his father steer him away from you, and I don’t find any joy in your pain, but I hope that you might allow me to…” he trails off and then huffs a laugh. “Listen to me. I sound like a romance novel.”

Lafayette closes his eyes again and tips his head to the side; he smiles. “Yes, but it is not such a bad thing.”

“Can I ask you something?”

Lafayette shrugs. “Sure.”

“Do you like me? I mean… you know what I mean. So far. Would you like to know me better?”

He takes a moment to really think about it and, guilt over John aside, he knows that there is nothing but excitement building in his belly over the prospect of seeing André again, of going out with him. Of possibly kissing him again. His belly turns with the thrill of the thought and he brings his knees up so he can rest his cheek against his thigh.

“I would.”

“Can I ask you something else?” Lafayette hums his response. “If your other John were to come back to you now… what would your reaction be?”

Lafayette takes a moment to think about this too. He knows how he would have responded to this a couple of weeks ago, but now… He finds that he no longer knows the answer to that question. “At first I thought that I would take him back no matter what he had done. I hurt so badly for him, all I wanted was for him to come back.”

“And now?”

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “He has hurt me so terribly. I do not know that I could overlook it or set it aside.”

André makes a small sound. Lafayette can hear him shuffling something around in the background but he is otherwise quiet for a few moments. Lafayette rubs at his eyes again; he’s tired still today. 

“One more question,” André finally says.

“Yes?” 

“Can I take you out for ice cream later?”

Lafayette doesn’t know why but this makes him laugh. “Ice cream?” 

“My treat,” André says, grin evident in his voice.

“Only if it is very good ice cream. I have very high standards,” Lafayette muses.

“Of course,” André agrees. “Only the best. I take it you know where we can procure the very best ice cream on the island of Manhattan.”

“Of course.”

“Then please allow me the pleasure of your company on an incredibly romantic outing this afternoon,” André says, sounding ridiculously formal with his accent.

Lafayette is still grinning to himself. “I would like that.”

“Text me where I might meet you,” André says. “I’m over in Soho, but I’ll come to you wherever you might be.”

“All right.”

“Say one o’clock?”

Lafayette agrees and they say their goodbyes. He considers a moment googling the address of the ice cream shop in West Village that he has in mind and sending that to André. Instead, he taps in his own and sends that.

> André (12:20pm): See you soon!

Lafayette sends back a smiling emoji and locks his phone. He sits on the floor for a moment longer, staring at the wall before him. This feels so strange, to be this excited, this hopeful, even though his heart still feels the strain John left behind. He doesn’t feel so bad anymore. He likes André and there is no guilt at the realization. 

He pushes himself up off the floor and stretches until his back pops. He goes to get dressed with a smile on his face.

 

\--

 

André is punctual, looking just as fantastic as he did the night before, in skinny-legged jeans and a soft looking black and white striped shirt, thin enough that Lafayette can see his nipples through the material. He avoids looking, once he’s noticed that. 

They walk side-by-side, conversation coming easily and casual. Their hands brush once or twice but Lafayette doesn’t make a move to take hold, even though he kind of wants to. He isn’t feeling quite so brave yet. 

André buys their ice cream and a bottle of water for each of them. They find a bench that isn’t at all shaded and eat their rapidly melting dessert, trying and failing to avoid sticky fingers. It’s ridiculously hot out but there is a steady breeze that keeps it from becoming uncomfortable, and they sit and talk. André turns to sit on the bench facing him, one leg drawn up under him and his hand on Lafayette’s thigh, thumb rubbing small circles against the material of his jeans. 

It’s nice, this easy familiarity between them. Lafayette talks about himself and André returns the favor. He’s relaxed into the heat, the touch of André’s hand, the ease of his smile and the curl of his accent around his words. It’s just… nice. 

After a while, André cups his cheek and leans over to kiss him. Lafayette opens his mouth for it and André’s tongue brushes his. He tastes like pistachio ice cream and Lafayette doesn’t want him to stop. They kiss until André pulls back, thumb brushing the corner of his mouth, over his bottom lip. He looks so utterly gorgeous with his mouth damp and a little bit swollen, tongue slipping out to run over his own lips, like he’s still tasting Lafayette there. There’s a tug of heat in his belly at the sight, and Lafayette leans in to kiss him again.

It’s harder than the last one and it doesn’t last as long, because André pulls back again, groaning a little as he does, pressing his hand to Lafayette’s chest to hold him in place. 

“Maybe not here,” he says, glancing around. There are people everywhere out here but Lafayette would still kiss him, if he were allowed to. 

André takes his hand, however, and moves to sit closer. It’s still incredibly hot out, but Lafayette is too satisfied with turning their hands this way and that to admire the difference in their skin tone to really care.

 

\--

 

André walks him home and he comes up to the apartment when Lafayette invites him. There’s real anxiety in his belly when he realizes that he’s invited this man up to his home after only speaking to him a handful of times. (It’s exactly what he did with John, his brain reminds him.) They’re alone and Lafayette had just eagerly kissed him in public, and now there may be expectations when there were none on his own part. 

He struggles for something to say. “Would you like… a coffee, maybe?”

“That’d be nice,” André says, fluffing his hair back into place. He’s wearing his glasses again and Lafayette is starting to think he doesn’t like, or doesn’t have, contacts. His own eye itches at the thought but he ignores it. André follows Lafayette into the kitchen and leans against the counter a few feet away from him.

“You don’t have to be so nervous with me,” André says as Lafayette takes down two mugs, the ceramic clacking together loudly when his hand shakes.

“I am not,” Lafayette defends.

André catches his wrist in a loose grip and tugs until Lafayette turns. The near lack of height difference throws him off for a moment again. André trails his fingertips down to Lafayette’s hand and curls their fingers together. His smile is easy and nice and Lafayette feels his stomach untwist a little.

“I don’t want anything you don’t want to give me,” André says. “If you want to just drink coffee, then I’m entirely happy with that.”

“And if I want to kiss you again?” Lafayette asks, though he thinks the quaver in his voice is audible enough that André will not actually think he wants that at this moment.

André shrugs, swinging their hands slightly in the space between their bodies. “Then I’d like that too. And anything else, I’d also like.” He brings his free hand up and tucks a spring of curls, too short to make it into his bun, back behind Lafayette’s ear. “But I’m not expecting anything.”

Lafayette feels like someone has pulled the plug out of him and his entire body begins to sag all of a sudden. “I don’t know what I am doing.”

“With… me, or in general?” André asks.

“You. This,” he waves his free hand around to indicate the apartment. “My life here was centered around my… my ex. And now I don’t know what I will stay here for. I don’t know what I am doing.”

André lets go of his hand to take hold of his biceps and he rubs them both like Lafayette is cold. “So, you figure it out. You’re not under any pressure to stay, if you don’t want to.”

“I want to stay, though,” Lafayette says, sounding miserable to his own ears. “I like it here.”

“So stay,” André says.

“All of my friends, except for Thomas, they were his—John’s friends, though. What do I have here?” he asks, like somehow André will know the answer. This poor man who doesn’t know him all that well to begin with and is now being saddled with all of Lafayette’s fears. 

André pulls Lafayette close until their chests touch and his arms go around Lafayette’s shoulders. He sinks into it, pathetically grateful for the contact. André says nothing and Lafayette lets his eyes close. He breathes in the scent of André’s shampoo, vaguely floral, and the lingering touch of his cologne, and he feels content. He tightens his hold.

“You’re thinking too much about this, Laf,” André tells him. “It’s only been a month, yes?” Lafayette nods. “And you’re not entirely over it.” He shakes his head.

“I wish that I was. I wish that I was not putting this on you. I can’t seem to stop,” Lafayette groans, pressing his face into André’s neck. “I do like you,” he murmurs, his lips brushing the stubbled skin of André’s throat. “I like you so much.”

André’s breath catches and his hands on Lafayette’s shoulder blades go still, fingertips digging into the muscle there. “The feeling is mutual.”

“Is it?” Lafayette can’t stop himself from asking. “Even with how I fight to let go of my feelings for John?” 

“Is it working?” André asks, voice going thicker in his throat. “Are you getting over him?”

Lafayette pauses and lets himself consider it before he nods and presses his mouth to André’s skin. “You are making it easier,” he rasps.

André’s hands spread over his back and his head tips to the side in encouragement or offer, Lafayette doesn’t know, but he takes it as both, and parts his lips to press a sucking kiss against his throat. André lets out a strangled sounding groan and grips the back of Lafayette’s neck, holding him close. 

Lafayette bites and kisses and sucks at his skin until his lips are scraped raw from André’s stubble. A hand on his chin draws him up and André turns his head, trying to draw Lafayette into a kiss. Lafayette goes easily, opening his mouth for the press of André’s tongue. They kiss and kiss until Lafayette is lightheaded with it, and he has to let it break so that he can draw in a ragged breath. 

André trails off down his cheek to nip at his jaw and Lafayette’s head tips back for it, panting for air while André hums against his pulse. Fingers curl hard at his hips and draw him closer. His heart starts to pound when he realizes how hard he’s gotten.

He hasn’t touched himself, really, since John left him, and he hasn’t had sex since the night before he left for France, over a month ago. He should be embarrassed by how quickly he’s gotten hard and by how little contact it’s taken, but André doesn’t seem put off by it. He’s still kissing Lafayette’s throat, pressing in with his teeth. His fingers curl around Lafayette’s hips and bunch up the fabric of his shirt, lifting it slowly, carefully, until he can touch the skin of his sides with his fingertips.

Lafayette sucks in a breath when André’s knuckles skim over his belly, rubbing against the trail of hair disappearing beneath the waist of his jeans.

“Laf?” André asks, voice rasping against his throat.

“Yes?” Lafayette breathes.

“Tell me what I can do, here. Tell me what’s all right. Can I touch you?” His knuckles are still rubbing but he’s not making any move to go further. Lafayette knows that he could brush André’s hand away, could step back and say he doesn’t want anything more, or that he’s not ready for anything else. He knows that André would accept that and wouldn’t be angry with him. He knows it.

And he says, “yes.”

“Yeah?” André confirms, kissing up his neck to bite at his jaw. “I can touch you?” he flattens his hand and drags his fingers down to brush over the bulge in Lafayette’s jeans. Lafayette sucks in a sharp breath and closes his eyes. 

“Yes. André, please.” He tips his head forward and takes André’s face in his hands and kisses him. A firm hand curls around the shape of him through his jeans and rubs. His hips buck forward into the touch and André grinds the heel of his palm against the base of his dick.

Lafayette groans and it comes out frantic, kissing him all the harder. 

“Laf, wait,” André murmurs, pulling out of the kiss with an indecent sound. “Can we go to your room? I want to see you. Let me touch you where I can look at you.”

Lafayette nods his agreement and André lets go of him to take his offered hand. Lafayette leads him down the hallway to his bedroom and then turns to strip off his own shirt while André steps back in to kiss him. 

“Christ, you’re beautiful,” André groans, both hands coming up to press against his chest. His hands are big and warm, a little rough, but so nice when they twist his nipples. Lafayette whimpers, lets him feel his way down his stomach to the button of his jeans. “Still all right?” André asks, kissing repeatedly at his mouth.

“Yes,” Lafayette breathes, nodding and looking down to watch as André pops the button on his jeans and tugs the zipper down. He reaches for André’s shirt and pulls it up over his head, sending his hair wild and knocking his glasses askew as it comes free.

André laughs and lets go of him to set his glasses to right. “Can’t see you well without those, love,” he says with a grin. Lafayette kisses him hard and André slows him down, turns it sweet where Lafayette would have pressed to make it faster. It’s nice. It’s really nice.

He touches André, lets his hands explore, thumbing his nipples and tracing the lines cut into his biceps. He’s all muscle under light skin, dotted with an occasional freckle and a light dusting of dirty blonde hair. He’s so different from anyone else that Lafayette has been with before, and it’s addicting to touch him.

André urges him backward onto the bed and Lafayette goes easily, sinking down into his rucked-up sheets, and pulls André down between his knees. They kiss and kiss, their chests pressed together as André grinds down against him. They’re both hard and Lafayette wants so badly to feel him, to touch his skin, to rub their dicks together, to feel him come off on him. He wants it, he wants it so much that he’s practically whining into André’s mouth by the time he reaches between them to unbutton his own jeans and shove them down his hips. 

André keeps kissing him, holding himself balanced on his knees to keep them in contact, while he gets his own jeans off and Lafayette does the same. André wastes no time, hooking his fingers into his boxer-briefs and tugging them down too. Lafayette’s face heats when his dick springs up against his belly, so hard that the head of his cock is already exposed.

“Oh, christ, look at you,” André breathes, finally breaking from him to look down between them. 

Lafayette’s hips arch of their own accord, and he bites his lip, face flushed and waiting, letting André look his fill.

“Gorgeous. Fucking gorgeous,” André rasps, pressing a chaste kiss to his mouth that lingers. Lafayette whines at the loss of his lips. “Can I suck it? Is that all right?” he asks, palm pressed to Lafayette’s cheek, his eyes wide and pupils blown.

Lafayette’s mouth goes dry and he can only bring himself to nod in reply. André kisses him again, wet and dirty, eating the whimper right out of his mouth, before he breaks away to kiss a path down his chest to his stomach. Lafayette’s cock is leaking when André wraps his hand around it and lifts it to drag his tongue over the head. 

“ _Oh god, please. Please._ ” Lafayette moans, spearing the fingers of one hand through André’s hair and reaching up to grip the headboard with his other hand.

André groans, swirling his tongue filthily around the head, pressing into his slit, before he eases off. “I don’t speak much French, but if you keep it basic like that, I think I’ve got the idea,” he says with a grin.

“André, please. Do not tease me. I… I haven’t in too long. I will embarrass myself,” Lafayette whispers, turning his face into his own bicep, eyes pinched shut.

“Shh, love, you’re perfect,” André assures him, jacking him tight and slow and just a little too dry. Lafayette whimpers. “Just let go for me. I want you to feel good.”

“Then suck me,” Lafayette begs. “Please, André. Please, please—“

André shushes him again and then swallows his cock. Lafayette arches, unable to keep his hips down. He whines and bites at his arm, trying to wrestle his control back so that he doesn’t choke André. But André doesn’t seem to mind. He moves with it, sucking and groaning, riding the unsteady buck of Lafayette’s hips until Lafayette comes an embarrassingly short amount of time later.

He cries out for André and tugs so hard at his hair that, when his hand comes free, he has blonde strands twisted between his fingers. His vision is blurry when he opens his eyes, and his mouth is dry; he’s panting and his chest is heaving, and his cock is too sensitive for the fist André has him held in, squeezing him through the aftershocks.

“ _Oh, darling, stop, please, stop,_ ” he begs, still searching for his English. André understands him well enough, because his hand falls away, and he begins mouthing his way back up Lafayette’s body until he’s kissing at his lips again, coaxing him back into responding.

He doesn’t let André go far; when he tries to move from between his legs, he tightens his thighs and grips him around the waist, keeping him there. Lafayette’s fingers are sore from being clenched so hard, but he eases them back into André’s hair and urges him to continue kissing him.

“Come on me,” Lafayette whispers into his mouth as he wraps his own hand, around André’s cock and squeezes. 

“Wait, can you—do you have anything?” André whimpers. “’s too dry.” 

Lafayette lets go of him and twists until he can reach the bottle of lube that’s gone untouched since before he went back to France. He slicks his palm and spreads his legs again to accommodate André between them, and jerks him off slow and tight and wet. He kisses him, sweet and easy, and André rocks into the touch, breathing going ragged when he comes, shooting over Lafayette’s fingers onto his belly in several thick spurts.

André collapses atop him with a groan, still shuddering as Lafayette holds him through it, caged between his thighs and his arms wrapped around his shoulders. He kisses at his forehead and cards his fingers through André’s hair until he goes still, and then he simply holds him. 

“All right, then?” André asks after a while of the two of them just breathing and getting used to the feeling of one another. At Lafayette’s nod, André kisses the under side of his jaw and then pushes himself up to kiss lightly at his lips. “Yeah?” 

Lafayette smiles. “Very good.”

André cups his cheek and kisses him again, letting it linger this time. “Clean up and then how about we order in, watch a movie, yeah?” Lafayette nods and André grins at him before he climbs off the bed. 

Lafayette offers him a pair of sweats to change into and gives him free reign of the bathroom to get cleaned up. 

“What are you hungry for?” André asks, digging through the pockets of his jeans for his phone. He stands bare-chested in Lafayette’s bedroom, hair flopped over his forehead and glasses on, looking like a dream Lafayette never knew he had. He hesitates at the odd tightening sensation in his chest and then shrugs. 

“Anything is good. But a lot. I am hungry,” he says before he ducks into the bathroom, André smirking at him as he goes.

“Built up an appetite, huh?” follows him as he pushes the door shut. He wipes off his belly and brushes his teeth and looks at himself in the mirror. The burn from André’s stubble isn’t very noticeable on his skin but he can feel it around his mouth and on his lips. It’s nice, he decides. Different, but nice. He combs his curls back with his fingers and twists his hair into a bun, hitting the light switch with his elbow as he exits the bathroom.

André is standing in front of the dresser, his phone in one hand and the picture frame Lafayette had turned face down, weeks ago, in the other. He’s looking at it with an indecipherable set to his face and Lafayette finds himself instantly wishing he’d put the picture away altogether. He lets go of his hair and brings his hands down to wring together in front of him, feeling terribly anxious all of a sudden.

“This is your John, then?” André asks, glancing back at him over his shoulder. 

Lafayette takes a breath and nods, coming closer to him. André’s body language isn’t closed off at all; he turns a half step toward Lafayette, still holding the picture. 

“I don’t know why I haven’t put it away,” Lafayette says, voice quiet.

André’s eyebrows disappear into his hair. “Come on now, mate,” André says, not unkindly, pushing the stand open on the frame before he sets it upright again. “You’ll put it away when you’re ready. Not quite yet, huh?”

Lafayette stares at him; he has to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat before he can speak again.

“Why are you… so good about this?” he finally manages to choke out. 

André looks at him for a moment before he goes to grab his shirt off the floor, tugging it on and tucking his hair back behind his ears. “I’ve been in love before,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “Nothing that serious is ever entirely black and white.”

Lafayette doesn’t know what to say so he turns and rummages through the dresser until he comes up with one of John’s older Columbia shirts and pulls it on. It’s big on him, so John absolutely swam in it, he figures maybe that’s why John didn’t take it with him when he packed. It doesn’t smell like John at all anymore but it’s comfortable and the pit in his belly begins to ease up when he tugs it on.

André offers his hand and Lafayette takes it. “Food’ll be here in a bit,” he says, giving a slight tug to get Lafayette walking. He trails after André and sits on the couch beside him, their fingers laced together while they search for something to watch on Netflix. He doesn’t want to let go when the door buzzes a short while later.

 

\--

 

André stays the night and Lafayette sleeps better than he has in over a month. In the morning he makes the both of them breakfast while Lafayette responds to the small mass of texts that had piled up during the night.

“Do you want to get brunch with Thomas tomorrow? He says he has a business proposition for you.” he asks, looking up from his phone. André is trying to form pancakes into odd shapes and he’s mostly failing at it, but his face keeps scrunching up adorably and his tongue peeks out from between his teeth every time he tries to create a new angle with the spatula.

“Just tell me when and where,” he says without glancing away from the stove.

Lafayette watches him for a long moment, smiling to himself, before he texts back and affirmative to Thomas. He has to talk business with André, but he’s invited Lafayette along as well; it feels ridiculously good to have friends, that are entirely his own, to be included with again.

André leaves after he helps load up the dishwasher; he promises to meet Lafayette at some restaurant in Midtown tomorrow morning. Lafayette gets a kiss goodbye before André disappears into the elevator with a grin and a ridiculous little wave.

Lafayette spends the afternoon cleaning the apartment and doing his laundry. Afterward, he finally bites the bullet and calls a locksmith to come change his locks. He sets aside a spare key for his landlord and hides the other one on top of the refrigerator. He supposes that he’ll give it to Thomas tomorrow, just in case

He hesitates before he drops his old key into the trash. There’s no real reason to hold onto it, but still, he tightens his fist around it and feels the grooves dig into his fingers for a moment before he opens his hand and lets it go. 

 

\--

 

Lafayette wakes up to a good morning text from André and it makes his belly heat pleasantly. He gets ready early enough that he replies and tells André to send his address so that they can head out together. 

André lives close by in Soho, where he’s renting a loft on a monthly lease; he’s hoping to get a job in DC soon and his space shows how ready to pack up and move he is. 

They haven’t discussed any sort of future plans, and André doesn’t ever push him to. Likewise, Lafayette gets the feeling that André isn’t expecting anything long-term out of him and he isn’t sure how the notion sits with him. He’s still indecisive about… well, everything, he reasons, and he can’t rightly force someone else to make wide-spanning decisions when he himself doesn’t know what he wants.

So, he waits in the entryway and looks around at the fully furnished décor, while André slips his shoes on, and takes his offered hand on the way out the door.

 

\--

 

Thomas is already there, waiting for them, seated at a table beside a window that opens completely out onto the sidewalk. He rolls his eyes when André pushes in his chair for him but he’s grinning when he leans forward with his arms folded on the tabletop. 

“Well, aren’t you two cozy?” he asks.

“My incredible British charms haven’t failed me yet on this continent,” André informs him, glancing over the brunch menu lying in the center of the table.

“You good, my man?” Thomas asks, directing it solely at Lafayette, even with André seated right beside him. 

Lafayette glances at André, who is politely pretending to be unable to hear them, and he nods. “Very good.”

Thomas reaches over and squeezes his forearm before he sits back in his seat. They talk casually until they finish eating and then things turn to business. Lafayette doesn’t have any interest in the world of politics but he tries to keep an ear open to the conversation so that he can be involved in anything André might want to talk to him about later, but mostly, he plays on his phone while they chat.

He takes a picture of their espresso cups nestled around the small white vase filled with pink flowers in the middle of the table, and opens up instagram.

He captions it, _Good morning, my lovely friends!_ and posts it without tagging anyone. André’s hand settles on his thigh and rests his own atop it, sliding their fingers together; André squeezes and doesn’t let go.

All in all, he can’t remember a better morning in the recent past.

 

\--

 

He spends the rest of the day out with André, shopping and enjoying the waning afternoon heat. They walk around until his feet hurt, and then André takes him back to his loft and Lafayette pulls him close, the moment the door is shut. André comes willingly closer, touches him with careful hands. They kiss even after his lips go raw from André’s stubble, and he’s achingly hard in his jeans.

They undress each other before they stumble into his bed. André touches him like he’s worshiping him and sucks his cock until he comes, spilling over his fingers. Lafayette tugs André back by his hair and shakes his head. 

“Stop, you must give me a moment,” he gasps, using his other hand to wipe at the sweat sheening his forehead. 

André looks smug, laid out between his thighs with his lips swollen and wet. He turns his head and kisses Lafayette’s hip, sucking at the skin until a bruise starts to form. Lafayette allows it, letting go of his hair to settle back down into the pillows. André’s loft is wide open and bright, nearly all of the walls are floor-to-ceiling windows and they didn’t close any curtains. He hopes they’re high up enough that no one can see in.

He closes his eyes and he drifts while André sucks and licks and bites at his skin, letting the warmth pool in his belly again, building slower and better as his cock starts to twitch with interest again. He’s going to let André fuck him. He’s ready for it, he wants it, he wants to feel it, wants to be sore tomorrow knowing that André fucked him open and made him come again on his cock.

He sucks in a breath when André pushes his thighs up higher, bending him further, and cracks his eyes open. 

“What—?” he asks, voice thick in his throat. André spreads his cheeks with his thumbs and starts kissing his way lower. “No, André, don’t,” he says, suddenly realizing his intent; he pushes himself up on his elbows and shakes his head, thighs clamping together against his shoulders, chest tight with panic.

“No?” André asks, looking up at him.

“You are—you mean to… to lick me?” Lafayette struggles to ask.

André nods. “You don’t like it?”

Lafayette’s stomach tightens unpleasantly, thinking suddenly of John, and how he’s never much liked it outside of when John has done it to him in the past, and he shakes his head again.

“No. Please, don’t,” he finds himself begging.

“Hey, hey, it’s all right,” André says, pushing himself up and quickly settling himself against Lafayette’s side, tucking his hair back behind his ear and stroking at his cheek. “We don’t have to do anything. I just thought you might like it.”

“I don’t want that,” Lafayette rasps. He clears his throat, trying to work his voice loose. 

André shakes his head. “We can stop,” he offers. “Really. I didn’t—I should have asked.”

Lafayette’s anxiety ebbs rapidly with André’s soothing touches on his face and his neck. He takes a few slow, careful breaths before he moves his head closer and tips his chin up for a kiss.

“You sure?” André asks, voice quiet. “Honestly, love,” he says, “I can take care of this in just a minute.” 

Lafayette huffs a laugh and takes him by the neck to pull him into a kiss. “I want to take care of it,” he murmurs against his lips. “I want to. Will you let me? Can I have it? Please?”

“Fuck,” André breathes, pushing in to kiss him again, harder this time. “You don’t have to beg me, Laf.” 

“Then fuck me.”

André kisses him again and then sits up. “Right back,” he says, sliding off the bed and padding, naked, into the bathroom. Lafayette lies there with his knees up, staring at the ceiling, and takes himself in hand, stroking idly until André returns with a condom and a bottle of lube in hand. He climbs back onto the bed and kisses Lafayette again before he settles on his knees beside him.

“How do you want this, love?” he asks.

Lafayette lets his knees tip open as he spreads his hands out over his inner thighs. “Like this.”

André watches the move with wide eyes, gone dark, and a flush spread over his cheeks. He gets himself situated between Lafayette’s legs, spreading them wider, and putting him on display. Lafayette feels a little rush of embarrassment at the simple fact that André has never seen him like this before, not really. It’s been a while since someone was seeing him this way for the first time, and it makes his toes curl to be under such intense scrutiny.

But André’s hands are gentle when they touch him, spreading him open and stretching him with care. He kisses Lafayette’s knees and murmurs soothing nonsense to him about how beautiful he is, how tight he feels, how he can’t wait to be inside of him, make him feel good. Lafayette closes his eyes and lets his legs fall open, digging his feet into the bed to pull his own thighs back as he fists his hands in André’s pristine, white sheets. It feels obscene and he loves it.

There’s a moment of adjusting, his knees going over André’s shoulders, and thighs coming up to press against the backs of his own, his body being tugged down the bed and André tucking the pillow under his head for him until he’s comfortable. And then André is leaning over him and kissing him while he guides his cock inside. 

It’s been a long time, too long, and the stretch of a new cock, bigger than he’s used to, almost sets him on edge. The burn of it goes on longer before André is settled inside of him, their hips pressed together. It’s different but not uncomfortable, and André holds still for him, panting against his cheek, until Lafayette shifts for a better position.

“You all right?” André asks, grabbing at his legs, to keep him steady, as Lafayette eases them down, trying to get them around his waist instead. 

Lafayette nods. “Just—better like this,” he breathes. André shifts inside of him and he groans, fingers digging into his shoulders. “You are so big,” he moans, tipping his head back into the pillow and closing his eyes. He gnaws on his lip for a moment and when he opens his eyes, André is watching him closely.

“Do you want to change? You wanna get on top?” André asks, bringing a hand up to rake through his hair, darkening at the roots with sweat. 

“I will ride you, then?” Lafayette asks, legs moving restlessly against his hips, the stretch still a little too intense. 

“If you want.”

Lafayette nods and André pulls out, holding onto the base of the condom that Lafayette never actually made sure that he put on. He tries to ignore that as André rolls onto his back and holds his dick upright for him. Lafayette slicks him up again with a few tight strokes of his hand, and then straddles his hips.

“Christ, look at you,” André whispers. Lafayette reaches between his legs to guide André’s dick back into him, bracing himself against his chest with the other hand, and then he’s sinking down onto it, and it’s better. It’s so much better. 

“Oh, fuck,” Lafayette gasps, head tipping back. The stretch isn’t so intense like this, but the feeling of it, knowing that it’s André’s cock that he’s pushing down on, it makes his toes curl. 

André grips his hips with overly warm, sweaty hands, nails cutting into his skin. Lafayette can feel the tension in his core, the way he holds himself still from thrusting up. He’s biting his lip and staring at the ceiling as he waits for Lafayette to move. 

He rocks his hips, pulling himself forward a bit before he sits back, and André groans, eyes pinching shut.

“Laf, can you move? Please?” he whispers, holding tight to Lafayette’s waist.

Lafayette curls himself forward and presses a chaste kiss to his open lips and then murmurs into his mouth, “You don’t have to beg me.” 

André groans and Lafayette sits upright and moves. He rides André hard, bracing the heels of his hands against André’s chest and fucking himself until he can barely breathe. André is holding himself relatively still, letting Lafayette control the pace, the intensity, all of it, and it just drives Lafayette on. He wants to make it good for him. He clenches, trying to make himself tighter, make it better for André, but André starts shaking his head against the pillow when Lafayette finds his rhythm faltering. 

“Laf, just—do what you were doing,” he pants, eyes slitting open so that he can look up at Lafayette. His cheeks are flushed, his scarce smattering of freckles standing out prettily against his lighter skin. His eyes are dark and damp and he looks beautiful. 

“I will make it good for you,” Lafayette rasps, rocking his hips harder again. “I want to. I want to so badly for you.”

André shushes him, though it’s shaky, his thumbs rubbing hard circles into his hips. “It’s wonderful, love, believe me. You just… you just make yourself feel good. Watching you like this…” he trails off, settling back into the pillow because Lafayette starts to work himself on André’s cock again, angling it just right inside of him to hit his prostate. 

He cries out, grinding down over and over until his body is shaking, overwhelmed with it. André wraps a hand around his dick and squeezes before he strokes the head, smearing precome over his foreskin. Lafayette is so wet with it, leaking down his shaft and over André’s fingers. He whimpers, body going still, fully seated on André’s cock as the fist working his erection drives him rapidly toward the edge.

He lets out a whimpering sound, a desperate little _oh_ , and then he’s coming, balls drawing up so tightly that they ache, and he shoots over André’s fingers. Lafayette comes so hard that he folds over on himself, body jerking with it, making André grunt out his name and thrust his hips up. 

Lafayette thinks that André comes, he must, but he’s so lost to the feeling of his own orgasm, on having someone inside of him again, that he can’t focus on it. He bites his lip raw, and digs in with his nails until the sensation starts to ebb and the hand on his dick becomes too much. He hasn’t managed a second orgasm in one night in longer than he can remember.

André lets him go and draws him forward, up off his cock, and then tips him gently over onto his side. Lafayette keeps his eyes closed, panting into the pillow as André shifts beside him, getting up and padding away from the bed. Lafayette’s heart calms as the intensity fades, and he starts to relax. André returns to the bed wearing boxer-briefs, and turns him gently onto his stomach to clean him up. 

Lafayette revels in the attention, the softness of André’s hands, the obvious care with which he touches him. It’s nice. It’s really nice, and he drifts off when the sheet is pulled up over his waist. He’s comfortable and he’s safe; it’s easy to let go and doze in the afterglow.

He wakes not too long after, when the bed shifts and André climbs in beside him. He offers Lafayette a bottle of water and a kiss on the forehead when he takes it, rolling over onto his back. 

“I feel so good,” he says, stretching his arms above his head and arching his back. André watches him with a lopsided grin, settling his glasses on his nose. 

“Glad I could be of assistance,” he says. Lafayette shoves at his side but immediately curls over to lay his head on André’s thigh. Fingers spread out into his curls and begin to comb carefully through them. Lafayette closes his eyes again and practically purrs under the attention. It’s so easy, so warm, so nice. He doesn’t think that he’ll ever want to move again.

The bottle of water André brought him stays curled in his fist, sweating against his palm, until his phone buzzes twice in rapid succession. 

“Yours,” André says.

Lafayette looks up at him to find him sitting upright against the headboard with his own phone in hand, peering down at the screen with a look of mild disgust at whatever he’s reading. The scrunch of his nose is adorable.

With a groan, Lafayette pushes himself up and over to the side of the bed. André has placed his phone on the nightstand to charge; the thoughtfulness of the simple gesture makes him smile as he reaches for it. 

He has two missed texts from John.

Lafayette’s heart leaps into his throat and his mouth goes dry. He has text preview off, so he can’t see what John has sent him from his lock screen. He sits with his thumb hovering over the home button for a long moment before he tells himself he’s being ridiculous and unlocks his phone.

> John (6:02pm): Can we talk?  
>  John (6:02pm): Please?

Lafayette stares down at the screen for a long time before he backs out of his texts and deletes the conversation. He locks his phone and sets it down on the nightstand again before he squirms back around to lay his head on André’s warm thigh once more. The hand returns to his hair and he tries to relax under the touch. He chews at the skin around his thumbnail and stares off into the open space of André’s loft. 

He tries to forget what he just read. He tries to forget that John hasn’t spoken to him in nearly two months and has suddenly decided to break his silence. He tries to recapture the feeling of bliss that being so close to André had brought him.

He tries so hard.

 

\--

 

A week passes and Lafayette doesn’t hear another word from John. Texts from Alexander and Hercules have ceased as well, and Lafayette tells himself that he doesn’t care. Thomas speaks to him constantly during the day, and André settles down beside him nearly every single night. He’s not alone and he’s not unhappy, but John is like a bruise, deep down on the bone: if he shifts just so, it’s brilliantly painful all over again.

He does his best to ignore it and focus on what is in front of him.

“Contrary to belief, I do not like these events,” he says while André fixes the knot of his tie for him. He’d done it purposefully sloppy because André fusses over small things for him, like this. He likes the attention and level of care it shows.

“Yes, but you like me, and Thomas is helping me out, here.” Lafayette nods and André smooths his tie down and tucks it into his waistcoat. “And you’re a good boy.”

Lafayette swats at him and André grins, offering his arm. He rolls his eyes but he slips his arm through André’s and follows him off the sidewalk, into the overly air-conditioned building. There is a pompous gallery showing that Thomas has thrown together as a means for André and another one of his contacts to mingle with a handful of New York City politicians. It’s a leg-up for André, a favor, political posturing that Lafayette doesn’t entirely understand, but he’s agreed to come and he plans to drink wine until he feels appropriately smiley enough to be André’s arm candy.

It’s all very typical of the scene, as far as he can tell. It’s not much different from the night at the hotel bar where he met André. The only real difference is that this is a catered event and Lafayette is wearing a suit. That and the amount of people that he’s being forced to smile and shake hands with.

Thomas greets them soon after they arrive with a glass of red wine for the both of them. Lafayette kisses his cheeks when he accepts his and Thomas gives him a look full of faux sympathy. 

“Poor rich baby not up to social schmoozing for his ladder-climbing beau?” he coos, patting Lafayette’s cheek. “Cheer up, French kid, there’s plenty of wine to fill the void.”

“What void?” Lafayette asks warily. 

“I’ve gotta steal Mister André for a while,” Thomas says, tipping his head toward a group of stuffy-looking men who, mostly, look packed into their over-priced suits. “People to meet.” He rubs his fingertips against his thumbs and Lafayette lets the arm linking him to André drop with a sigh.

André takes his hand and brings it to his lips, kissing his knuckles a few times. “Forgive me, love,” he says, already backing away. “Won’t be too long, I promise.”

Lafayette watches him go. He doesn’t feel out of place, the setting is unfortunately familiar to him, after a year with John and his own obligations growing up, showing his face at charity events that his grandmama had favored when she was alive. Now, he just feels uncomfortable and hungry.

He wanders in and out of the mostly-open floor plan, slipping between groups of people to glance at the pieces hung up on the walls. He sips his wine and snags small bite-sized bits of food from passing servers. There is a small series of dramatically red paintings along one wall, far removed from the most populated areas of the room, and he has almost convinced himself to place a silent bid on them, when someone steps up beside him.

Lafayette almost spills his wine when he looks. John is standing next to him, hair pulled back into a neat bun, charcoal suit pressed and black tie knotted neatly at his throat. His hands are clasped behind his back and he’s looking up at Lafayette with dark circles under his eyes, his complexion washed out under the lighting. He looks exhausted.

“You never returned my texts,” he says, voice quiet but clear over the faint piano music coming from the main room.

Lafayette stares, his lips parted in something like disbelief, before he snaps back to himself and he looks to the paintings again. 

Full minutes creep by and John doesn’t move, even when Lafayette keeps his silence. His palms are starting to sweat. 

“Are you going to ignore me?”

“I have nothing to say,” Lafayette says, his voice barely more than a gravelly whisper; he clears his throat. “Nothing.”

“Gil,” John murmurs. “Look at me. Please. I need you to talk to me.”

Lafayette’s eyes start to burn and he forces himself to focus all the harder on the paintings in front of him, the harsh brush strokes, the vibrant colors that seem to come right off the canvases. He wishes for André or Thomas to appear and pull him away. He digs his nails into his palm and hands off his glass to a server who comes closer when he makes eye contact with her. 

“Gil—“

“I have nothing to say to you, John,” he says, finally turning to look at him.

John keeps his hands folded together behind his back and doesn’t make a move toward him. Lafayette is grateful for it, almost as much as he hates it. His whole body suddenly aches to feel John’s hands again and he’s disgusted with himself for the weakness.

“Don’t be like that, Gil,” John says quietly. “I’ve been thinking about you. I miss you.”

“Don’t,” Lafayette says, shaking his head. “You have missed nothing. If you had missed me you—“ he cuts himself off when a petite woman in a light pink dress and gold flats approaches them. Her hair is long, braided over her shoulder, and she’s pretty, if not a little plain. She puts her hand on John’s arm.

“There you are,” she says, voice quiet and fond. “I didn’t know where you’d gone off to.”

Lafayette’s words freeze in his mouth as John’s face melts into a panicked expression. He puts his hand on the small of this woman’s back and gestures toward Lafayette with the other.

“Martha,” he says, and no, it can’t be. It really can’t. “This is…” John takes a breath and his eyes search Lafayette’s face, too wide and moving too fast. “This is my—my friend. Lafayette.”

There has really only been a handful of times where Lafayette has felt that his world has come to a grinding halt — the death of his grandmama, John leaving him — but this… this moment takes his breath away. 

“This is Martha.”

Martha holds out her hand to him, smiling sweetly. Lafayette takes her fingers and draws her knuckles to his mouth, pressing a kiss to them. It’s not this girl’s fault, he tells himself. She knows nothing of him. He doubts that she truly knows anything of John, either.

“Lovely to meet you,” Lafayette rasps out; he clears his throat and his eyes begin to burn. “Forgive me, darling,” he says, dropping her hand. “I am not feeling well. I must have a—a breath of air.”

He turns without waiting for a reply and immediately walks away. Ideally, he would head toward the front door, but his vision is honest-to-god tunneling and his breathing is going tight and short in his chest, and he can’t remember the way to the fucking door; so he heads down a dim hallway where no one seems to be standing and leans back against the wall. He tries to breathe.

“Gil,” John’s voice sounds off immediately and Lafayette holds out his hand to stop him from getting any closer.

“Stay away, John” he gasps, tipping his head back until it thunks against the wall. “Stay away from me.”

“Gil, listen to me, please—“

“Fuck you, John!” Lafayette’s temper flares wildly all of a sudden. All of his anger at John from the abrupt breakup, the silence after the fact, the total abandonment, the loss of his friend group, all of it wells up in this moment and he smacks John’s reaching hand away from him. “You call me Lafayette? You don’t even use my _name_ with this woman?” he’s shouting and he can’t make himself stop. He can barely see John through the tears blurring his vision; he doesn’t want to cry, he wants them to go away, he wants to be angry.

“Gil, please, not so loud,” John begs, holding both hands up in front of him in a pleading gesture. “Please, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, just come outside and talk to me.”

Lafayette shoves him back and John stumbles into the wall. “Talk to you? When I _beg_ you to talk to me and not leave me before, you take your things and walk away! Now you ask _me_ to talk? When you bring your _girlfriend_ to me?”

“Gilbert, _please_ , you’re—you’re being too loud. Please, just talk to me. I’m listening now,” John’s voice is cracking and it makes Lafayette’s anger burn hotter in his belly. He wants to push John right through the wall, but instead he looms over him while John blinks tears down his cheeks and looks up at him. Lafayette’s own tears have dried up in his anger.

“ _I have nothing to say now,_ ” Lafayette spits in French. “ _I begged you to not go._ ”

“ _I know. Gil, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Christ, you have to believe me, I miss you so much,_ ” John switches languages to continue pleading with him. His cheeks are flushed and damp and his eyes are wide, brimming with tears, and all Lafayette wants to do is gather him up in his arms and tell him he forgives him. 

But John’s girlfriend is out there, maybe even watching this, listening to them. He doesn’t know if she can understand French or if John will have to explain what they’re saying now to her too. He can’t imagine that the damage won’t already have been done by the scene they’re creating together, but Lafayette just can’t stop. He’s been denied this moment, this anger, this reaction for two months, and he can’t stop himself.

“ _You’re pathetic. Lying to that girl, lying to your horrible father, lying to yourself.”_ He narrows his eyes. _“Do you fuck her, John? Can you bring yourself to do it? Who do you think about to get there?_ ” Lafayette spits.

“ _Stop it!_ ” John snaps back at him. “ _Just—just stop._ ” John takes a breath and rubs at his eyes. When he speaks again, it’s not at all what Lafayette was expecting. “Is he your boyfriend now?” 

Lafayette blinks. “What?” 

“That blonde guy. Is he really your boyfriend?” John sounds so tired, so crushed, that Lafayette has to again fight off the urge to draw him into his arms and pet his hair back or dry his cheeks with his thumbs.

When Lafayette glances to the left, both Thomas and Martha are among the small cluster of people who have gathered to watch them fight. Thomas has his eyebrows raised at the two of them, while Martha looks like she’s ready to burst into tears. He looks back at John and holds his gaze for a long moment.

“Gil?” he whispers.

“ _I pray to god she is worth it_ ,” Lafayette murmurs before he steps back and pushes his way through the thin crowd. 

Thomas grabs his bicep but Lafayette pulls free with one forceful tug and heads straight for the door. He doesn’t think twice before he stumbles out onto the sidewalk, leaving this whole disgusting experience behind, and breathes in the tepid September air.

He has no idea how long he stands there, staring off into nothing, before a cautious hand touches the small of his back. He turns with a start, ready to shove John off of him, but when he looks, it’s André. There is nothing but concern etched into the lines of his face and Lafayette feels suddenly awful about what he’s just done. He may have potentially ruined something very promising for André and the thought makes his face burn with shame.

“I’m sorry,” he rasps, taking hold of André’s forearms with both hands. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to react like that. I did not expect him there. I could not _think_ straight—“

André shakes his head and cuts him off with a wave of his hand. “Doesn’t matter. Not important.” He puts his arm around Lafayette’s waist and pulls him toward the edge of the sidewalk. André flags a cab and opens the door for Lafayette to slide in. Lafayette gives his address to the driver and then tucks himself under the arm André offers out to him.

Neither of them says a word on the drive home.

 

\--

 

When they get back to the apartment, Lafayette doesn’t strip out of his suit and get in the shower, like he’s aching to. He goes straight to his room and opens up his laptop. It doesn’t take much (he has a hunch which gossipy rag has been spewing details of his personal life to the internet), just a quick search, and there it is, the reason John knows about André.

The same French website that had posted the unflattering, personal pictures of him and John last summer, now has an article entitled _This John or That!_ and has a photograph of him with John Laurens, and another from the afternoon that he and John André had met Thomas for brunch, hand-in-hand, on the sidewalk.

“’Is it love or trouble brewing for our little Lafayette? The model, who moved to New York City two years ago, has seemingly traded in his boyfriend for a newer (read: older) one of the same name.’,” Lafayette reads aloud from the article as André leans silently against the doorjamb. “’So how do they stack up against each other?’” he trails off, still staring at the screen. “They compare you to him.”

André pushes off the doorframe and comes to sit beside him on the bed. He closes the lid on the laptop and takes it from him, setting it aside at the foot of the bed. 

“He must have seen that. I don’t know how else he would have known,” Lafayette says, looking over at him. He is absolutely drained by what happened at the gallery, being confronted with John and Martha, and every single thing that John said to him with tears rolling down his cheeks. He presses his face into his hands and tries to regulate his breathing. André’s hand squeezes gently at the base of his neck.

“Are you all right?” he asks. Lafayette shakes his head. André sighs. “I know, Laf.”

Lafayette sniffs and sits upright again, scrubbing his palms against his thighs. “I’m sorry. I ruined… everything for you tonight.”

“There’ll be other opportunities for me to kiss ass for a job.” His hand stays on Lafayette’s neck, a steady, comforting pressure. “I want to know that you’re all right.”

“André, stop. Stop being so fucking _nice_ to me. I ruined your night,” Lafayette says, pushing himself up and tugging his jacket down his arms, tossing it to the floor. He rakes his hands through his hair, pulling the tie free, and setting it on end. He feels almost frantic; he needs André to do _something_ here, but he doesn’t know what.

“You want me to be angry with you?” André asks, looking up at him.

Lafayette starts pulling at his tie, feeling suddenly claustrophobic from it, but his fingers fumble and all he succeeds in doing is pulling the knot tighter.

“I don’t know,” he half-shouts, throwing his arms out and then letting them flop back down. “I don’t know how I am supposed to feel. He said—“ Lafayette sucks in a breath and blinks to clear his vision. André stands and begins to pull his tie loose. “He said he miss me,” Lafayette whispers miserably.

“He’d be a fool not to,” André tells him, sliding his tie out from under his shirt collar and letting it drop to the floor. His hands press flat against Lafayette’s chest and he looks so sympathetic, so understanding, like Lafayette isn’t jerking him around with his feelings for both him and John. 

Lafayette feels awful, completely and utterly awful about what he’s doing, and he doesn’t know how to fix it. He does the first thing he can think of and grabs André’s cheeks in both hands, and pulls him into a kiss.

André lets out a muffled sound of surprise against his mouth and pulls back out of it. “Laf, wait,” he says, using his hands against Lafayette’s chest to hold him in place, keeping him from advancing. 

“What?” Lafayette asks, voice cracking on the single word.

André shakes his head. “You need to sleep, love. Not… not this.” He moves his hands to Lafayette’s biceps and squeezes. “Let’s get you ready for bed, yeah? I’ll stay tonight, if you want, but… not for that.”

Lafayette lets his hands fall between them and the last of his energy drains away at André’s genuine concern for him. He feels a little embarrassed at his own actions but he nods and André gets him stripped to his boxer-briefs and into bed. He follows suit, tossing his own clothes over the same chair as Lafayette’s had gone. He takes a moment to retrieve both of their phones and plug them in, one on each bedside table, and then climbs in beside him.

André kisses his cheeks and his forehead and then turns him on his side and presses himself to his back. Lafayette goes still and lets André tuck him in against his chest. He tries not to let his mind wander anywhere outside of what is happening right now, in his bed. He tries not to consider that John actually does miss him, or that he may be hurting André with his actions. 

He is, quite possibly, a terrible human being.

Lafayette turns his face into his pillow and pinches his eyes shut. He wants to apologize to André but he doesn’t know where to start. He never had his full heart back from John to give away in the first place, and now he is suffering for it and dolling that out to people he now cares about. 

He is selfish, he realizes. Terribly, horribly selfish. He sniffs and André’s arm tightens around his waist, a quiet shushing sound murmuring against his neck. 

He doesn’t know how long they lie like that before André’s breathing evens out and his grip goes lax. Lafayette doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to shirk the touch, so he lies still and tries to sleep. He’s absolutely exhausted but his body is too tense, his mind too wound up, and he can’t even make his eyes close, let alone find rest.

Lafayette has just started counting the beats of André’s heart against his back when his phone buzzes. He knows that it’s John before he even reaches out for it, but seeing his name there makes his anxiety ratchet up another notch.

Still, he unlocks his phone and reads the single, lengthy text.

> John (11:16pm): Gil, please talk to me. I’m sorry about tonight. I didn’t expect to see you there and I didn’t expect to have to introduce you to Martha. I froze. She didn’t know the truth about me and I’ve been denying it all over again ever since you went back to France. I didn’t want to hurt her, she’s a nice girl, she doesn’t deserve what I did. I told her the truth tonight. I didn’t think I could feel worse about what I’ve done to us but I’ve found a new low by dragging her into it. But I’m done with her, Gil. I swear. I don’t care what my dad wants. I’m so sorry for all of it. I fucked up so bad. I miss you so fucking much. I LOVE you so fucking much. Please tell me we can fix this. Please, Gil. I’ll do anything to make this right again.

Another text comes in before he finishes reading the first.

> John (11:18pm): Let me fix it, Gil. Please. Tell me I can call you. Tell me he’s not with you right now. Tell me you don’t love him.

And one final text.

> John (11:19pm): I’m so sorry. She wasn’t worth it. I love you.

Lafayette locks his phone and fumbles the volume onto vibrate before he tosses it into his closet. He rolls over in André’s arms and presses himself against his chest, burying his face in his throat. André wakes slightly and pulls him closer, a hand coming up to hold the back of his head before he goes still again. Lafayette closes his eyes and tries not to lose it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags have been updated to include a bar fight.

There is a particularly painful sort of helplessness in knowing that John wants him back but also knowing that he can’t trust John anymore. He doesn’t know that he can ever trust John the same way again. He doesn’t know for certain that he even wants to. How can he when he has André? This man who isn’t afraid or ashamed to be with him? Who lies to no one about himself or Lafayette. He has never been so confused in his life.

John texts him again the next day.

> John (3:04pm): Gil, please talk to me.

Lafayette tries to delete the entire conversation but he keeps going back to the set of texts from the night before and rereading them. It makes him feel so terribly guilty that he leaves his phone in his bedroom and goes out for dinner with André. 

They stay out long passed dark and they walk around Times Square and people watch. André buys them churros from a street vendor and they share bites between their running commentary on tourists. 

This is nice, Lafayette reminds himself. This is what he could have if he could just let John go entirely. John could go off and marry some girl and be miserable and invest a lot of time and money in buying escorts on the side, or something. And Lafayette could have this. He could love André, he knows he could. He likes being with him, he likes having sex with him, they make each other laugh, they share similar interests. There is nothing standing between the two of them falling totally head over heels for each other.

Nothing except for John Laurens.

Lafayette knows that he’s letting John drive him to distraction, even without his phone in his pocket. He knows that he’s being unfair to André, acting as sullen and quiet as he is, but he can’t seem to stop. He can’t figure out how to just let it the fuck go and pull himself back up without John.

He is the worst kind of person for doing this to André.

“I’m sorry I sort of ruined the night. Again,” he says when they round the corner on Lafayette’s block. He’s got his hands balled up in his pockets because it feels selfish to want to touch André right now. 

André bumps their shoulders together as they walk, their pace slowing down even further as they approach Lafayette’s building. “You didn’t ruin anything.”

Lafayette shakes his head and takes his hands from his pockets to tuck his hair back behind his ears; he left it down and the lingering summer humidity is making it frizz out. André takes his hand and slides their fingers together when he drops his arms again. Lafayette squeezes until his knuckles hurt.

“He texted me last night. And again this afternoon,” Lafayette admits, even though he’s sure that André knows, or at least has suspected.

André nods. “What did he say?”

“He say he is sorry. He knows he made a mistake to leave me like he did and that he told that girl the truth about him last night.” Lafayette drags his feet; he doesn’t want to get to his building and have André say that he’s going home to his own apartment alone. His eyes start to sting as André pulls him to a stop. “He is saying everything I wish that he would say to me two months ago.”

André squeezes his hand and looks down between the two of them at the ground. He doesn’t say anything, but when he looks up, his expression isn’t a happy one.

“I don’t know what to do,” Lafayette admits, reaching out to take hold of the side of his neck and pull him closer. “I care for you both.” André closes his eyes and Lafayette presses their foreheads together.

“I’ve got to admit,” André says quietly between them, “that I’d started to really hope that you would get over him.”

Lafayette’s heart clenches painfully in his chest. “I am awful, I know. I wish I could let him go. If he would leave me be, maybe I would but—“

“I know, Laf,” André says, leaning back and pushing his glasses up. He sniffs and Lafayette despises himself at that moment. André clears his throat. “I get it. I’m not happy, I’ll admit, but I get it. I thought maybe, given time, you’d start to feel that for me, but neither of us can force it.”

“I care about you,” Lafayette says miserably. “I don’t know what I want to do.”

“Yes, you do,” André says with a sigh. “Question is, will you do it?”

Lafayette doesn’t know how to answer that. Instead, he takes a step back toward his building and pulls at André’s hand with both of his, urging him along. 

“Stay with me tonight?” he asks. André hesitates in place a moment before he nods and lets Lafayette lead him upstairs to his bed. 

 

\--

> John (1:10am): Please talk to me. I know you’re pissed, you have every right to be. I know I fucked up. I can make it right, if you just give me a chance.
> 
> John (1:25am): Gil, baby, please. I miss you so much.

 

\--

 

Lafayette wakes the following morning to an empty bed. He rolls onto his back, still naked and a little sore, the sheet twisted around his waist. André is getting dressed, his hair wet and finger-combed back into its usual half-coif; he’s tugging on a shirt that Lafayette is certain is his own.

He lies there and watches André collect his things, fasten his watch on, and unplug his phone and tuck it into his back pocket. When he looks up, he looks right at Lafayette, like he knew he was being watched the entire time. 

“You are leaving?” Lafayette asks quietly.

André leans over, planting a hand against the mattress and tilting Lafayette’s face toward his own with the other. He lifts his chin for a kiss, but André tips his head down and presses a lingering kiss to his forehead instead. A pit forms in Lafayette’s stomach almost immediately, and he rolls his lips inward to bite on them.

“I’ll text you later today,” André says, brushing his thumb against Lafayette’s bottom lip before he stands upright again. 

“Don’t go like this,” Lafayette says, pushing himself up and grabbing André’s hand as it slips away. “I am trying, André.”

The fingers in his grip tighten into a squeeze. “I know, Laf,” André tells him with a sigh. “I know. I just need a little space here,” he says, voice quiet and echoing John’s words from months ago, and the pit in Lafayette’s stomach grows.

“Don’t say that to me,” Lafayette whispers. “That is just what he say to me before he leave me. Now you will leave too.”

André shakes his head and reaches out with the hand not caught in Lafayette’s grasp to cup his cheek again. He leans forward once more to kiss him, and this time he lets their lips brush. 

“I need distance and you need to think. I’m not leaving, Laf,” André assures him. “I just can’t be in as deep as I’m getting when you take him back.”

“Who said I would take him back? I never say that. I have not even spoken to him. He texts me and I don’t respond. I can show you my phone, if you don’t believe me.” Lafayette doesn’t know why he’s pleading all of a sudden, but he doesn’t want André to walk away from him like this, the same way that John did.

André sighs and tugs his hand free to rub at his eyes under his glasses. “Lafayette,” he says, low and serious, “I don’t want to see your phone. I don’t want you to stop talking to him or ignore him, or do whatever it is that you don’t want to do. All that I want is for you to make a decision.” He puts his hand over Lafayette’s knee under the blanket and squeezes. “I won’t push, Laf. And I’ll hope the outcome of this is in my favor, and I’ll wait. But I won’t wait forever.”

There is a moment of silence in which Lafayette feels like his heart is going to beat right out of his chest. The next, he feels like someone is letting all of the air out of him. He slumps and he nods.

“Don’t be alone today, all right?” André says, still squeezing his knee. “Go out with Thomas or have him come here, or one of your other friends. Don’t mope.”

Lafayette wants nothing more than to mope. “You will text me, though?”

“I promise.”

Lafayette lets out a sigh and he nods. André pats him on the leg and offers him a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and then he leaves. The apartment is far too quiet. He lies there and listens to the wind outside, the far-off sound of traffic, a door closes somewhere downstairs but it’s too muffled to hear anything else from the floor below.

It’s quiet and Lafayette is entirely alone.

He turns over onto his side and reaches for his phone. There are only twitter notifications waiting for him when he unlocks it. He scrolls through his mentions for a moment before he closes the app and texts Thomas to come over that night. The reply is almost instant.

> Thomas (9:10am): Not gonna smash with ya man tonight??

Lafayette snorts out a breath through his nose. _Don’t be gross._

> Thomas (9:12am): I live to be gross. Yeah, I’ll be over later. We gonna do our nails and braid each other’s hair?

_That’s the plan._

> Thomas (9:13am): Cool. I’ll bring wine.

Lafayette texts back a thumbs up, but before he can hit send, his phone begins to ring. It’s John, of course. He’s actually a little surprised that John hasn’t called him before this. Still, he isn’t ready for it. Lafayette lies there, propped up on his elbow with his phone in hand, watching it ring for a moment before he declines the call. 

He sends his response to Thomas and then he locks his phone. Determined to go back to sleep, he pulls the covers straight and settles back down against his pillows, trying not to think too hard about any particular thing.

His phone beeps, and for a moment he thinks that John has left him a voicemail, but it’s another text. Lafayette puts his phone on vibrate and sets it on the nightstand. He doesn’t read John’s text until he wakes up again.

> John (9:15am): Come on, please. Gil, I’m begging you to talk to me. I can fix this. I swear I won’t ever hurt you again. Just give me a chance to prove it.

Lafayette doesn’t respond. He gets dressed and heads down to his building’s gym and runs on the treadmill until his legs feel like they’re going to give out on him. 

 

\--

 

Thomas brings wine and a six-pack of mismatched bottles in a cardboard carrier. Lafayette sets it on the coffee table and pulls the bottles out one at a time to inspect the handwritten labels. 

“What is this?” he asks as Thomas returns from the kitchen with a wine glass in each hand, the bottle tucked up under his arm.

“Home brew.”

“You brew in your apartment?” Lafayette asks, suddenly wary. 

“Listen, you uncultured baguette,” Thomas says, setting everything down on the table, “home brew is a fine art that takes skill and patience to master. Those bottles are at least 80% guaranteed to not explode while you’re holding them." Lafayette lets the bottle in his hand fall back into the carrier with a clank. “At least 70% guaranteed to not explode when you drop them like that.”

Lafayette scrunches his nose. “I’ll take the wine.”

“Coward,” Thomas says, waving a dismissive hand in his direction. “More for me.”

Thomas pours him a glass of too-sweet wine, vintage unknown, and sits back into the couch cushions. He already feels calmer, better, with Thomas there, making himself at home beside him with one of his little bombs-in-a-bottle.

“Third,” Thomas says, out of nowhere, tipping his bottle toward Lafayette for him to take a reluctant drink, “I brew back home in Virginia.”

Lafayette can barely bring himself to swallow the sip he takes. “It’s like grapefruit and wheat,” he whines, coughing a little around the bitterness.

Thomas ruffles his hair and takes a longer drink. “Good boy.” 

Lafayette pushes closer and settles himself against Thomas’s side. There are fingers in his hair and Thomas’s shoulder firm under his head, and a cold glass of wine in his hand. He’s not doing too bad, he tells himself. The pit in his stomach that is some vulgar mess of John André and John Laurens is still there, but it’s contained, for the moment; he doesn’t feel like he’s being consumed anymore.

“You wanna tell me what y’all’re fightin’ about?” Thomas asks after a few quiet minutes have dragged by. 

Lafayette turns his nose more into Thomas’s shirt and shrugs. Thomas smells good, comforting, like a long-lost memory come back to light. It’s easy to relax and talk to him, even when he doesn’t really know what he wants to say.

“We didn’t fight,” he says. Thomas scratches at his scalp in response. “John has been texting me. Since before the gallery showing.” Lafayette lifts his head a bit to look up at Thomas. “Why was he even there? That was your event, wasn’t it?”

Thomas sighs. “I didn’t know he would be. Henry Laurens is usually the one lurking around my peripheral, not his kid. I’d never seen John before that. Probably saw it as a chance to get his kid out there, in front of his conservative butt-buddies, with a girl on his arm, rather than you.”

Lafayette ducks his head and Thomas pulls him so close that he’s practically sitting on his thigh. 

“Come on,” Thomas says, giving him a shake, “keep going.”

Lafayette takes a drink, even though he doesn’t really want it. “He started texting me a week or so before that, wanting to talk. I never say a word back to him, but he keep on trying. After that night, he tell me he wants me back. He has told Martha the truth about him and that he loves me,” he whispers the last bit. “He still loves me and he wants to make it right. He said he made a mistake.”

“Kid might not be so dumb after all,” Thomas says, slumping a little to get comfortable and kicking his feet up on the coffee table. 

“André does not push me to make a choice between him and John. Is almost like he… he wants me back with John. He is ready to give me back up.” He knows exactly why that thought makes his chest ache but he can’t bring himself to say it.

Thomas huffs. “Come on, Gil, you know that ain’t true. André doesn’t want to give you up so easy but you were never really completely into it with him to begin with. I’m sure he knows that.”

“I don’t want to hurt him like this. I like him. So much. He is so good to me,” Lafayette says, sitting up so that he can set his glass on the table. He rubs at his eyes even though they aren’t wet, only burning with the sensation of tears.

“That dick game too strong, huh?”

Lafayette smacks the back of his hand against Thomas’s chest and Thomas laughs and grabs his wrist, pulling him close again, pressing a kiss to his forehead. 

“It is not about that,” Lafayette insists.

“I know, kid, come on. André is a good guy. Probably better than your John.” Lafayette grumbles but Thomas shushes him. “But he’s not The One. He knows it, you know it, Laurens knows it.”

“It confuse me, though, because he _could_ be, you see? I could… I could love him if I tried. If John would just let me be,” Lafayette groans, rubbing at his face with both hands again. 

Thomas squeezes the back of his neck and rubs at the tensed muscles there with his thumb, pressing hard enough to make him wince.

“I get that, Laf. But this ain’t some alternate universe where you met André first. You know Laurens, you love the little weasel, and you want him back. André gets it, he’s sad about it, you’re sad about it, but we all know what you want.” Lafayette feeds his arm around Thomas’s stomach and goes still without responding. “Question is, has Laurens changed enough to deserve it?”

For that, Lafayette has no response. He doesn’t know. John says he has learned his lesson, that he no longer cares to please his father at the detriment of his own personal happiness, that he still loves him. That last part continues to pound against the inside of his skull. John loves him, enough to tell his faux-girlfriend the truth about himself, enough to make his father angry with him. John loves him.

And he loves John.

Lafayette rubs his eyes again and holds himself tight to Thomas’s side. There is no judgment there, just a heavy arm around his back, keeping him in place, keeping him safe. He relaxes in increments until he feels good enough to sit back beside Thomas and refill his wine glass. They order in and they watch intense documentaries on demand, and Lafayette actually feels happy.

He thanks every single saint that he’s named for, that Thomas has found his way into his life.

“You know,” he says after one show has ended and another is loading up. Thomas looks at him with his eyebrows raised, three bottles deep into his vile six-pack. “If I were not so in love with my boys, I would be in love with you.”

Thomas snorts a laugh into his beer and pulls Lafayette down to smack a kiss against his cheek. 

“I could never date you,” Thomas says with a grin. “You’d make me feel too insecure about my French.”

Lafayette flops down beside him, content under the weight of his arm. “You could not handle me, anyway.”

“I could handle a dick just fine,” Thomas deadpans. “Been handling my own for a while now.”

Lafayette snorts wine up into his nose and he nearly drops his glass as he bolts upright at the pain. “Oh, you _ass_ ,” he groans, fumbling to set the glass down on the table.

Thomas’s howling laugh follows him all the way into the kitchen where he cleans himself up and waits for the burn in his nose to subside. He’s rinsed his face and washed his hands, and just turned to the refrigerator to grab them each a bottle of water when he hears something thump against the front door.

Thomas is still sitting on the couch, legs now folded underneath him, and squinting at the tv through his glasses, while he flicks through potential shows with the remote. Lafayette looks to the door as he steps out of the kitchen and he listens. For a moment, there is nothing, and he is about to shrug it off and go back to the living room, when he hears the doorknob rattle. 

He stops abruptly and heads toward the door. The quiet clink of keys is muffled but he can hear it, along with a bitten-off curse, and then the doorknob shakes again.

Lafayette flips the bolt and tears the door open without hesitation. He knows without looking that John is going to be standing on the other side, but he’s just tipsy enough that he doesn’t care.

John stumbles forward when the door is yanked open; his keys clatter to the ground. The tv goes silent behind him but Thomas doesn’t make a noise. Slowly, John looks up from his keys to meet Lafayette’s eyes, and he knows instantly that John is drunk.

“Gil.”

“What are you doing here?” Lafayette asks, keeping his hand on the door, ready to step back and slam it at a moment’s notice.

John leans against the wall and looks up at him. “You never responded to me. I called you.”

“If I wanted to speak to you, I would have.” Lafayette is not drunk but he can feel the buzz of alcohol all over his body and he feels braver than he thinks he might if he were having this confrontation completely sober.

“Don’t be like that, Gil,” John says, holding his hand out and then letting it flop uselessly against his thigh. “God, I miss you so much. I broke up with Martha, I told you, yeah? I told her about me.” He huffs a laugh. “I told her what a fucking coward I am.”

“You need to leave,” Lafayette says quietly. “Please go, John.”

But John just shakes his head and stands upright again, stumbling a bit to his right. Lafayette has to grip the doorframe to keep from reaching out to steady him. 

“I can’t, Gil. I miss you so much, baby girl. I think about you all the time. Even when I was with her, I was thinking about you. God, just seeing you the other day… you’re always on my mind.” John’s rambling; he brings a hand up to rub against his chest, like it hurts and he’s trying to ease the pain. “I love you,” he whispers. “You still love me, right? That guy… you don’t love him, do you?” 

John braces himself on the doorjamb and Lafayette wants to take a step back from the smell of whiskey on his breath as much as the close proximity.

“John, you are… you are very drunk. Please leave,” Lafayette says, putting a hand against his chest to push him back when he leans into Lafayette’s space.

“Is he in there? Does he stay here?” John’s face tightens as he pulls himself as upright as he can. “Is he here right now?”

“That is not your business,” Lafayette says, pushing back harder when John tries to take a step forward. “My life is not your concern anymore. John, _stop!_ ”

Thomas appears then, pulling Lafayette out of the way and grabbing John by the shoulders, and then the wrists, when he tries to follow Lafayette into the apartment. Thomas absolutely dwarfs John’s slight frame, and he holds him easily in place.

“You need to go, little man,” Thomas says, not sounding the least bit intoxicated, while Lafayette’s head is absolutely spinning. “Laf, call someone to come get him.”

“I’m not leaving. I need to talk to him,” John says, shoving at Thomas to no avail. “Who the fuck even are you?” John demands, twisting his wrists uselessly as Thomas holds them in a tight grip.

“Laf,” Thomas says again, “you know someone?”

Lafayette fumbles for his phone, suddenly wanting nothing to do with this, with John. He was having a good night with Thomas, getting his head on straight about André, about _everything_ , and now here is John, once again, to fuck everything up for him.

Alexander picks up on the fourth ring, right when Lafayette’s stomach has started to twist with anxiety. 

“Laf? What’s up?” he asks.

“Where are you?” 

Sounds of the street can be heard, loud traffic and pedestrians talking filtering through the speaker. “The Village, why?” 

“Come get John,” Lafayette says, looking back to the door where Thomas has John’s wrists in a tight grip. John is looking up at him with wide, wet eyes, shaking his head and looking helpless as Thomas speaks to him, too quiet for Lafayette to hear. He turns his back on the scene. 

“What do you mean? Where are you? Is he all right?” 

Lafayette rolls his eyes. “Of course you would think of him first,” he says, and then continues over Alexander’s indignation, “he is at my apartment and he is drunk, trying to get in. Come get him, now.”

“Okay, I’m coming, I’m coming,” Alexander says. Wind whips passed the speaker and Lafayette tells himself to hang up but he doesn’t; he holds on and waits for Alexander to speak again. “Are you all right?”

“No,” he says simply. “He is hurting me all over again.”

“Laf—“

Lafayette hangs up and goes back to the door to wait. John is sitting slumped in the hallway with his back to the wall, looking down at the key ring in his hand. Thomas still blocks the doorway.

“Someone coming?”

“Yes, Alexander will be here soon,” he says, and then he looks at John. “I should stay with him until he arrives.”

“You don’t have to do that, Laf,” Thomas says, putting a hand on his bicep and holding tight. “This ain’t your mess to clean up.”

Lafayette knows that that is probably true, that John is the catalyst behind this whole, terrible situation, but he can’t just turn his back on him and close the door. Not while he sits on the floor with tears dripping off of his chin, holding his old house key between his thumb and forefinger, just staring at it. 

If Lafayette could turn his back on John, he would be with André right now, and the door he closed would not just be a literal one.

“I’m going to stay with him,” Lafayette says quietly, and Thomas lets him go. He steps back into the apartment and drags one of the chairs from the table over so that he can see the front door, and sits. 

Lafayette lowers himself to the floor, sitting with his back against the doorframe, facing John. It’s a while before John sniffs and wipes at his cheeks with both hands. 

“I know I messed up, Gil,” he murmurs against the heels of his hands. “I know. None of it was worth it. I had you and I was happy. And now I… now I’ve got a key that doesn’t work and an empty bed in a hotel room that gets made for me every day, and a father who still doesn’t give a fuck about me.”

“Your father loves you, John,” Lafayette says quietly.

John drops his hands and looks at him with bloodshot eyes. “Everything that I did, everything that I ruined, was for nothing,” he says, head tipped back against the wall. “I just wanted my daddy to love me like he loves my siblings.”

Lafayette hears Thomas shift to his right but he doesn’t look that way; he doesn’t even know if Thomas can hear John with how quiet he’s being.

“He loves you,” Lafayette reiterates. 

John snorts. “A lot of good that’s done me. I had you and I fucked it up. And I fucked Martha up. And now I…” he trails off and looks down at his keys again. He’s quiet for a long moment before he looks up once more, absolute misery written across his face. “Can I fix this, Gil? Please.” He sucks in a shaky breath. “You gotta know how sorry I am.”

“I know,” Lafayette says, drawing his knees up and picking at the inseams with both hands to keep from reaching for John. “I just don’t know if I can forgive it. If I even want to.”

“Will you talk to me about it? Please?”

“Maybe when you’re sober.” When he chances a look at John, he’s nodding.

“That’s fair.”

Lafayette doesn’t say another word. The three of them remain silent until the elevator opens and Alexander steps out. It takes the both of them to get John on his feet, and even then Alexander stumbles under his weight. 

“Don’t take him on the train,” Lafayette says. “He will vomit from the motion.” Firsthand experience, Lafayette thinks grimly.

“I’ve got an uber waiting,” Alexander says, patting John on the chest. “Come on, Jack. Move your feet for me.”

John looks back at Lafayette and reaches a hand out toward him that Lafayette does not take. “Can I call you?” he asks as Alexander tries to get him walking. 

“We’ll see. Drink water, John.”

“I’ll make sure he does,” Alexander assures him. He hesitates a moment. “Are you all right?” he asks Lafayette.

There’s a hot burst of anger in his belly at the question. “You have not spoken to me in weeks and now you ask me how I am?”

“It’s not like that, Laf,” Alexander says, struggling to get John upright again on his own; he’s slumping over, knees going weak and his head lolling. “You stopped responding; you were ignoring us. We thought you wanted to be left alone.”

“He will pass out soon,” Lafayette says, turning to head back into his apartment. “You may want to get him home before that happens.” He closes the door before Alexander can say another word to him. He leans back and closes his eyes. Nothing that just happened feels like it could be real, but he knows that it is. He knows that John is desperate to get him back, that he’s going to keep texting and calling, that he just tried to use his key to get into the apartment for the first time since Lafayette had it changed. 

And he misses John. He misses him so much that he aches all over, like a cold that has ravaged his entire body, leaving him drained and weak. He takes a shaky breath and covers his eyes with his hands. He refuses to cry about this. He absolutely refuses. 

Thomas’s hands pull him away from the door and strong arms wrap around him. He goes willingly into the hold and buries his face in Thomas’s shoulder. 

“I am so confused,” he admits, feeling suddenly desperate with the situation. He doesn’t know how to react, what to say or do. He doesn’t know how to handle John or himself. He clutches at Thomas’s shirt and clenches his eyes shut. 

Thomas holds the back of his head and keeps him upright. “I know, Laf. I know.”

Lafayette groans a sound of frustration and just lets himself be held. 

Thomas stays the night without much more than a _please_ on Lafayette’s part. He shoots off a goodnight text to André and receives one right back.

> André (1:34am): Goodnight, love. See you tomorrow?

Lafayette responds a quick affirmative before he plugs in his phone and settles down beside Thomas. He falls asleep quickly and sleeps far later than he usually does. When he wakes, he has four missed texts from John. He doesn’t read them. 

 

\--

 

Things between he and André don’t become strained or stilted. They still fit together just as well as they always have, and Lafayette has a good time with him. They go out to eat and they do silly tourist things that André wants to do, and they settle in at night to watch movies. 

André doesn’t pull back on the physical affection, like Lafayette had feared that he would; he still holds his hand and puts his arm around Lafayette when they’re sitting together on the couch or walking down the street. But his kisses have moved from Lafayette’s mouth to his forehead. He stays the night, but André doesn’t fuck him. He knows that André is trying to protect himself from something but Lafayette isn’t sure that he’s entirely made up his mind on anything. Still, he doesn’t push.

John continues to text him daily. Lafayette finally caves and reads them all a few days after he showed up at his apartment. They range from pleas for forgiveness and stressing how awful he feels, to anger over Lafayette’s continued silence. Which is, of course, followed directly by more apologies. 

John calls him every single night, but Lafayette refuses to answer. He simply isn’t ready yet, and he clings to André, however selfish that may be, in the meantime.

 

\--

 

“Christ alive,” André mutters angrily, shifting around behind him. Lafayette blinks awake to the pure darkness of André’s loft, and tries to quickly gather his bearings. André leans over him and grabs his phone off the nightstand.

“Laurens. Again,” he says, holding out Lafayette’s phone to him. “Just fucking answer it, Laf.”

“And what do I say?” he asks, taking his phone as André collapses back beside him, rubbing at his eyes.

“Tell him to stop fucking calling when the bars let out,” André snipes back. 

“I cannot control him! He won’t listen to me,” Lafayette defends. 

“Then block his fucking number, Laf.” André snatches his phone from him and swipes his thumb across the screen. He’s barking an irritated, “What?” at John before Lafayette can stop him.

He tries to grab his phone away but André twists the other direction. “Yes, he’s here. Right beside me, in my bed.” 

“André, stop!” Lafayette practically shouts, tugging his phone away. “Don’t—why would you say that to him?”

André flips the covers back and sits up on the side of the bed. “Because I’m fucking tired of him waking me up every night. Some people try to sleep _before_ three in the goddamn morning.”

Lafayette presses his phone to his ear and closes his eyes. “John, you must stop this,” he says as André gets up and storms out into the kitchen. 

“Who the fuck is he, Gil?” John demands. At least he doesn’t sound drunk this time. “Why the fuck is he answering your—“

“You do not get to ask questions of me, John. I said I would talk to you later.”

“When is later? When you get done fucking him?” John asks, voice going high and a little frantic. “Are you fucking him?”

“Jesus christ, John,” Lafayette says, rubbing at his eyes.

“Is he fucking _you?_ ”

Lafayette looks up at where André is pacing around the kitchen without purpose. “Please stop, John. I cannot do this with you right now.”

“When, Gil? It’s been weeks; I need you to talk to me. I can’t—I can’t stand knowing you’re with him. Fuck, do you love him?” John asks desperately. “You gotta tell me that, Gil. Please.”

“I don’t know, John,” Lafayette admits, leaning his forehead against his palm and closing his eyes. 

John’s exhale sounds more like a sob. “How can you not know? You either love him or you don’t. Do you still love _me?_ ”

“I’m hanging up. If you call me again, I will block your number. I mean it, John. I will call you when I can speak to you again.”

“You’re killing me, Gil,” John rasps. “I miss you so fucking much. Just take me back, Gilbert. _Please_ , baby.”

“I’m hanging up,” Lafayette says, clearing his throat. “Do not call me, John.” He hangs up before John can say another word. He sits there, holding his phone and staring at the dark screen for a full minute, expecting John to call right back, but he doesn’t. Another minute passes and Lafayette sets his phone back on the nightstand and kicks his legs free of the covers.

André is standing in the living room, arms folded against his bare chest, staring out at the building across the street. It’s not much of a view from right here, but André can’t see much without his glasses anyway, Lafayette reminds himself. He looks tired and angry and Lafayette approaches him like a chastised puppy. 

André doesn’t rebuff him, though. He lets Lafayette step up behind him and wrap his arms around him. He doesn’t move, however. 

It’s a long minute before he speaks. “I got a call from DC today,” he says, voice still sleep-thick. Lafayette tightens his grip and lowers his forehead to press against his bare shoulder. “I have an in-person interview next week.”

“You are leaving?” Lafayette asks quietly.

“It’s what I wanted when I came over from London,” he says, reaching up to rub at his eyes. “It’s the whole reason I came.”

“I know,” Lafayette says miserably. “I do not want you to go.”

André pushes at Lafayette’s arms until they go loose enough for him to turn around in. Lafayette settles his hands on his hips and holds him there.

“Give me a reason to stay,” André says, voice soft in the space between them. 

Lafayette blinks at him in the dark and tries to focus on his face. Even without his own glasses he can see the far-off look in André’s eyes. His stomach twists with anxiety at the thought of him leaving, but Lafayette’s mind throws the call from John back in front of him and he just can’t. He can’t give André this, even if he thinks he probably wants to.

André sighs after a moment and steps back from him, taking his hand. “I’m tired,” he says, giving Lafayette’s hand a tug. He leads them back to bed and Lafayette pushes right up behind him, holding him tightly. 

He kisses André’s neck and whispers, “I’m sorry.” André’s hand covers his own and Lafayette takes it and squeezes.

 

\--

 

“To our darling, little André,” Thomas says, holding his glass aloft. “May all of your political clusterfuck dreams come true.”

André huffs a laugh and clinks his own glass against Thomas’s, and then Lafayette’s. André had interviewed in DC and taken the job offered to him, by the Franklin administration, on the spot. Now, he, Thomas and Lafayette are out to celebrate. They’ve taken a secluded corner booth in one of the more upscale clubs in the area, and Lafayette has gotten them bottle service. 

André is in a good mood, happy with his prospects and Lafayette is trying to be. There are a few good looking girls milling around the table, talking to the three of them, making Thomas stutter and flush (even under the dark light), and André is holding his hand. It’s not a bad night, not by far. He keeps looking down at their fingers laced together as they sip at their drinks.

Lafayette doesn’t really know if André is interested in women or not, but he’s starting to think they might actually be bringing this redhead home with them tonight. She’s pretty and she has a nice laugh, but when she reaches out to put a hand on Lafayette’s side, André gently removes it.

“Sorry, love,” he says apologetically, “that’s mine tonight.”

She moves on soon after and André sits on a pristine, white ottoman and pulls Lafayette down on his lap. 

“Sorry,” he says in Lafayette’s ear, a little loud to be heard over the music pulsing around them. “Don’t feel like sharing. More than I have to, anyway.”

Lafayette puts his arm around André’s neck and turns his head to kiss him. “I don’t want to share you, either,” he murmurs, kissing him again, harder. André’s arm goes tight around his waist and Lafayette turns into him. It goes on and on, getting deeper and wetter, and Lafayette is already starting to feel that familiar stirring between his legs, when someone grabs him by the shoulder and tugs him back.

“You need to start selling tickets, if you two are gonna keep on like that,” Thomas says, pointing between the two of them. “Keep it in your pants for now, all right?”

André presses his face into Lafayette’s neck and heaves a sigh there. “What am I gonna do without you?” he asks.

“You will be happy,” Lafayette says, stroking fingers through his hair. “This is what you want when you come here.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “But now I have this, and I have to let it go.” He looks up, glasses askew, and Lafayette sets them right. “I wish things had been different,” he says as one song bleeds into another.

Lafayette tucks his hair back behind his ears, over and over, stroking at his temples. “Me too,” he says, sincerely. “I have missed you kissing me,” he adds, leaning in to press their lips together, slow and hard. André’s arm tightens around his waist as he squeezes Lafayette to him. 

“Believe me, I’ve missed kissing you,” André tells him when they break apart. “I will miss it forever, I think.”

Lafayette leans in until their foreheads are pressed together and he sighs. André’s hand creeps up his thigh and Lafayette lets them fall open to accommodate his searching fingers. He breathes out a sigh, too quiet to be heard over the thumping bass around them, as André rubs at where his dick is going hard against his thigh.

“I’ll miss this too,” André murmurs in his ear, biting at the lobe. 

Lafayette nods, seeking out André’s mouth with his eyes closed. He kisses him, a little sloppy, but so nice. “I hope you will fuck me tonight.”

André groans, biting at his bottom lip. “I will. Fuck, I want to right now.” He rubs harder at Lafayette’s cock through his jeans. Lafayette allows it for another minute before he reaches down and grasps André’s hand, pulling it away.

The both of them are breathing a little too quickly and Lafayette is well on his way to a full-blown erection, and they’re far too close to making each other come right out here in public, if this goes on. So he stops it, and André presses his forehead to Lafayette’s shoulder and wraps both arms around his waist again.

“Be good,” Lafayette tells him, stroking both hands through his hair, “and I will let you fuck me until you come and then I will let you come in my mouth.”

André groans and Lafayette can feel it in his chest; it devolves into a laugh after a moment and André looks up at him with bright eyes. “You do me a kindness thinking I can come twice in one night, like that. You wear me out.”

Lafayette shakes his head and kisses him through his own grin. “I have faith in you.”

“It’s my dick you need to have faith in. The will is strong, the body is old.” 

Lafayette tugs his head toward his chest and holds it there, petting his hair. “My poor, old man,” he coos. “Cannot even get it up twice for someone who is begging for it.”

“Is this you begging?” André asks, biting at his chin. “I don’t think this is begging.”

Lafayette tips his head back with both hands and simply looks at André smiling up at him. It’s so easy and genuine, like Lafayette hasn’t seen on him since before John started trying to force his way back in between the two of them. He strokes at André’s cheekbones with his thumbs. 

He sighs. “Are you happy?”

André blinks at him. “About the job? Yes, very.” 

“And… everything else?” Lafayette asks, hands still holding André’s cheeks. 

André shrugs. “I hate to say ‘it is what it is’, but what else can I do, Laf? You know what I want and if you can’t give it to me, then…” he lifts his hand and lets it come back down on Lafayette’s thigh, a helpless sort of gesture. “I’ve had a wonderful time with you.”

Lafayette tips his head to the side and kisses him slowly, sucking André’s tongue into his mouth and tasting the alcohol on his lips. He’s sweet with it, but not drunk; they’ve barely even made a dent in the bottle of rum Lafayette had bought for them. He places gentle, chaste kisses to his lips, over and over, before he pulls back.

“Will you come home with me tonight, then?” he asks. André nods and leans up to kiss him again, harder this time. “Stay with me. Don’t leave.”

“I won’t,” André promises, pulling him back down for another kiss. 

There is a hotness twisting his belly, a spark that’s pulling something tighter and tighter at every touch that André gives him. He wants more, he doesn’t want to let go.

A hand lands on his shoulder and Lafayette leans away, thinking that Thomas has come to tell them to cool off once more. He’s tugged backward suddenly, stumbling up to his feet. He trips and bumps into the table, catching himself in time to see André rising abruptly and then John immediately punching him in the face.

André staggers back, almost tripping over the ottoman they’d been sitting on, but he regains his balance and pulls himself upright. Lafayette can’t see the damage through the darkness of the club, but he knows that John hit him hard enough to break something. He pushes himself away from the table and shouts John’s name, but John is already swinging again.

André dodges the punch and lands his own, a solid hook, right against John’s cheek. John goes down and André follows him, hitting him again as the patrons around them stumble out of the way. 

Someone is on André, yanking him back, right off of his feet, and Lafayette has time to recognize Hercules as the one restraining him as André shouts angrily at John, still on his hands and knees, spitting out blood onto the floor. 

Lafayette blinks as Thomas grabs someone else (Alexander, his mind supplies), and then John is on his feet again, springing toward André. Lafayette catches him around the waist and holds tight.

“ _Are you out of your fucking mind?_ ” Lafayette shouts, his English abandoning him entirely. “ _Is this how you win me back? You attack my friends in public like a fucking psychopath?_ ”

“He’s not your fucking _friend_!” John yells back, blood dripping from a deep cut on his cheek. “You don’t make out with your fucking _friends_ in public!”

“Who I kiss is none of your fucking business, John!” Lafayette shoves him back a step, his eyes blurring with tears. “You saw to that! _You_ did this to us!” he shouts. “You are _ruining_ my fucking life, John,” his voice cracks toward the end. “Just leave me the fuck alone. I don’t want to see you again.”

“Gilbert,” John says, taking a step forward, his face suddenly panic-stricken. A burly security guard grabs him by the bicep and yanks him backward. John stumbles and almost falls but his eyes are locked on Lafayette. “Gil,” he says again, but nothing else is forthcoming.

Lafayette turns and takes hold of André’s hands and draws him close, turning his head to the side. A dark bruise is already blossoming over his cheekbone, looking tender to the touch. 

“Are you all right?” he asks, feeling suddenly desperate to be sure. This is his fault, he realizes. John may have swung but André is in the crossfire because of him. He wants to scream.

“I’m fine,” André says, brushing off the concern. “Let’s just get the fuck out of here.”

When Lafayette turns, John and the security guard are gone, but a new one is there, talking to Thomas and gesturing their way. Alexander is standing beside him, looking anxious, but keeping his mouth shut. Hercules is staring at André.

“You okay, man?” he asks. 

“Bloody brilliant, thanks,” he says, touching careful fingertips to his already-swelling cheek. He hisses in a breath and Lafayette takes his hand. 

“I didn’t know that was gonna happen,” Hercules says, meeting Lafayette’s gaze. “I swear, man.”

Lafayette shakes his head. “I thought you were my friends,” he says, his heart pounding too hard in his chest; he feels shaky from the adrenaline rush fading away.

“We _are_ , Laf,” Hercules says, gesturing uselessly between them. “You were the one who pulled back. We tried. You know we did.”

“My face really fucking hurts,” André interrupts. “Can we please?”

Lafayette doesn’t look back when Hercules says his name. He pulls André ahead and Thomas keeps Alexander at bay with a hand to his chest, and the three of them leave together. 

“What did security say?” André asks, still touching gingerly at his cheek when they hit the sidewalk.

“Asked if you wanted to make a thing of it. I said no. Figured you wouldn’t,” Thomas explains. 

Lafayette’s stomach twists terribly. “I am so sorry. I don’t know how he knew where we were.” He grips André’s arm tighter where he’s holding on with both hands. 

“Might be my fault,” Thomas says, rubbing at the back of his neck before holding his hand out to flag a cab. “I maybe posted a picture of the two of you eating each other’s faces on instagram.”

Lafayette groans. “Thomas, you did not.”

Thomas opens the door for them and André climbs in without a word. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Y’all just looked so happy and shit.”

“Delete it,” Lafayette says, stepping down off the curb.

“We’ll see.”

“Thomas.”

“Get some ice on that for him. And probably suck his dick too. He deserves it,” Thomas tells him, matter of fact.

Lafayette heaves a sigh and follows André into the cab. André doesn’t touch him or speak to him the entire ride back to his apartment. Lafayette has practically chewed his thumbnail off by the time they arrive.

 

\--

 

“I’m sorry,” Lafayette says the moment they’re through the door. 

“Don’t,” André mutters, heading straight for the kitchen.

“Let me get it, just sit, please,” he gets out in a rush, moving around André to get an ice pack out of the freezer. Lafayette usually only uses them when he’s spent too long on the treadmill and his knee acts up; he’s relieved that he has them to give to André now.

André sits on the counter and holds the ice pack to his cheek. It’s already swollen and discolored and it will probably leave his eye a little black. 

“I cannot believe he hit you,” Lafayette mutters, folding his arms and staring down at his feet. Tonight was meant to be a celebration for André, and instead, John used it as an excuse to act like a fucking maniac.

“I hit him harder,” André says, holding out his hand for Lafayette to inspect. His knuckles are turning a much lighter purple than his face, but Lafayette still sucks in a breath when he sees it. He grabs another ice pack and sets it gingerly over André’s hand.

Lafayette shakes his head, staring off into the darkness of the apartment. “I cannot believe him,” he says again.

“You’re not responsible for his actions,” André tells him. “Although, I must tell you, this diminishes my level of sympathy toward him to practically nothing.”

Lafayette huffs a breath and scrubs at his face with his free hand. “I want nothing to do with him. I can’t. I have never seen him like that before.”

“He was drunk,” André says, looking over Lafayette’s shoulder at the freezer door. “We’ve all done regrettable things while intoxicated.”

“Don’t defend him,” Lafayette says seriously. “Just be angry for once.”

“I’m tired, Laf,” André tells him quietly, the eye not covered by the ice pack flicks over to meet his. “I’m really fucking tired of all this.”

Lafayette’s heart starts to beat wildly in panic, even though he’s known this was coming for a while now. “Please don’t, André,” he says, placing his hand on his thigh and squeezing, since he can’t hold either of his hands.

“I’m moving to DC next month,” André tells him, as though Lafayette doesn’t already have the date marked in his phone with a frowning face. “I’ve tried to be something good for you—“

“You _have_ been,” Lafayette insists.

“But I was never a place for you to build. I was a place to rest.” 

Lafayette looks down at André’s knees and focuses on the sound of his own breathing rattling around in his ears. “I never meant for any of this to happen. None of the bad things.”

“I know, love,” André says, nudging him a bit with his foot. Lafayette looks up. Resignation is etched into André’s face, the set of his brows. “In another life, maybe.”

Lafayette nods sadly. He kisses back when André leans forward. He holds him carefully, touches him with gentle hands, and tries to put every ounce of himself into the kiss. When Lafayette asks him to come to bed, André says yes, and Lafayette leads him by his good hand. 

André sucks at the head of his cock while he opens him on his fingers, and props himself up on his elbows to kiss him while he fucks him. Lafayette holds him tight between his thighs and buries his face in André’s neck when he starts to move harder. 

It’s so good, André fucking the sense right out of him. He clings and he claws at André’s back when the overwhelming crest of his orgasm rushes through him, and he comes so hard that he sees stars. André fucks him through it, rhythm shot and hips moving so hard that Lafayette has to bite back a groan of pain. He doesn’t want André to stop. He doesn’t want this to be over.

André stays inside of him when he comes, and pulls out carefully. He knots off the condom and wads it up in a tissue to avoid getting out of bed. Lafayette rolls over against his side and kisses him until his jaw hurts. His eyelids droop as André traces patterns over his bicep with his fingertips, and Lafayette knows that this is the last time.

 

\--

 

Lafayette wakes up to an empty bed but he can hear André in the kitchen and he can smell bacon frying. He drags himself out of bed and into the shower. He tries not to think too much about last night, about the inevitable ending that seemed to come crashing in all at once on the two of them.

He’s just pulling on a shirt when he hears a knock at the door. André is already standing in the doorway by the time Lafayette hits the hallway, padding barefoot toward it.

“You’ve got some fucking nerve, I’ll give you that,” he hears André say, letting the door fall open wider.

John takes a tentative step inside when André backs up, hand still on the door. He’s got a small row of neat-looking stitches on his cheek, and blood still crusted on his jaw. His eyes flick to Lafayette as he rubs at his right hand (the hand that he struck André with). He looks sick with nerves.

“I came to apologize,” John says, voice rough with lack of sleep; Lafayette would know that grate on his vocal cords anywhere.

André doesn’t move. Lafayette hadn’t seen him before he got out of bed, but now that he can, his face looks worse for wear. The bruising has gone ridiculously dark, already green, fading into yellow, around the edges, and it’s still a little swollen. His heart gives a pained stutter in his chest at the sight.

John takes a breath and lets it out slowly. “I’m sorry.” He shakes his head, seemingly lost for words. “There’s no excuse for the way I acted last night. The way I’ve been acting.” He glances back to Lafayette. “I was out of line. I never should have hit you.”

“You’re a little prick,” André says. John nods.

“I know. Fuck, I know.” He blinks up at the ceiling for a moment and Lafayette has to grip the back of one of the dining room chairs to keep himself steady. “I know,” he says again. “I fucked up.” He shrugs, eyes red and watery when he looks back at André. “I’ve fucked so many things up in the past few months that I don’t even know where to start to make it right.”

“Hitting me was a really great jumping off point,” André says, deadpan.

“Look, I know, okay? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t excuse it but tell me if you were me that you wouldn’t be just a little fucking crazy to get him back.”

“That is a weak excuse,” André tells him.

John groans and rubs at his eyes with his fingertips. “What do you want me to say, man? All I ever do is fuck up. I disappoint my father, I break his heart,” he gestures at Lafayette, “and then I lose him to you, and I deserved that. I deserved all of this. I get that.” He goes quiet, and when he blinks, tears roll down his cheeks; he wipes them away immediately. 

Lafayette grips the chair back harder. 

“I don’t know how to make any of this right.” He shrugs, looking small and slumped, and a little bit pathetic. Lafayette wants to go to him so badly, but he doesn’t move. He looks at André and André is looking back at him. They hold each other’s gaze for a long moment before André turns back to John.

“Maybe try to exhibit some self-control,” André says, not unkindly. John looks up at him again. “Maybe give him some fucking space? Maybe back the fuck off of me and stalking his friends’ instagram accounts?”

John’s face goes red. “I’m not defending it, but in all fairness, Alexander was the one who showed me that picture.” André gives him an unimpressed look. “Right. Sorry. Again.”

“Own up to your bullshit,” André says. 

“I’m trying,” John tells him quietly. “I’m trying right now. I meant it when I said I was sorry. I know I’m an asshole.”

“Yeah, well, maybe work on that a little too.” John nods. André lets out a slow breath and he shrugs. “All right, then.”

John glances up at him. “All right, what?”

“All right, I accept your weak apology.”

A tiny, tiny smile lifts John’s mouth, the first one Lafayette has seen on him in literal months—almost three now; though that hardly seems possible, it is.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah. I’d shake your hand but I bruised it wrecking your face last night.”

Lafayette goes tense for a moment but John rolls his eyes. “Four stitches is not wrecking.”

“You don’t see any on this mug,” André says, pointing at his own discolored cheek. 

“Sorry, again,” John murmurs. “Really.”

André nods. “Do it again and no man will be able to stop me from grinding your face into the ground, got me?” John blinks for a moment but then he’s nodding back, and John looks over his shoulder at Lafayette. “My bacon is probably charcoal by now. Excuse me.”

He passes through the room to the kitchen, leaving John standing in the doorway and Lafayette still gripping the chair’s back. John doesn’t make a move to come closer, he stays where he is and slips his hands into his pockets, making himself look even smaller than usual.

His hair is pulled back, his ponytail messy and crooked, and there is a drop of blood on his shirt that Lafayette hadn’t noticed before. He can’t look away now that he’s noticed it.

“I’m sorry, Gilbert,” John finally says, his voice rasping in his throat. “For all of it.”

“I know,” Lafayette tells him, staring at that dark red spot. 

“If I could change it, I would.”

“I know that too.”

John sighs and his whole body seems to sag with it. “I still want you back,” he says. “But I’ll back off. I won’t text you anymore, I won’t call.” He glances toward the kitchen and his eyes go a little misty but he doesn’t cry again. “I’ll try to accept that.”

“What?”

“Him,” John says. “You look happy when you’re with him. From what I’ve seen, anyway. Your friend, the giant one with the hair…”

“Thomas.”

“He told me you’re happy.” John’s voice goes tight at the end and he has to clear his throat. He scuffs his toe against the ground. “I’m glad. That you’re happy, I mean. You deserve that.”

Lafayette closes his eyes a moment and tries to breathe, tries to organize his thoughts. “He does make me happy,” he confirms. There is a flash of something pained on John’s face and he doesn’t have to wonder much what it is. 

“I’m glad you’re happy, Gil. I wish like fuck that it was with me, but I know I messed it up.” He pulls his hair free and rakes his fingers through it a few times. “I thought I was smarter than that. I don’t know what I thought would happen with my father, because I… I always saw myself going back to you when the Martha thing was over.” He shakes his head, staring off, a little unfocused, like he’s not even seeing Lafayette. “I can’t believe I thought that you’d still be here waiting for me.”

“You broke my heart.”

John’s eyes fall shut. “I know,” he says, strained. 

“How do I forgive that, John? You push me away so abruptly, you give me no reason, you don’t speak to me… you left me alone. And then I meet André and he is all of the good things that I like about you and more.” John pinches the bridge of his nose, his eyes clenched shut. “And I could so easily love him but I can’t, because you are haunting me.”

“If there is _any_ way that I can prove to you how sorry I am, that this will _never_ happen again, I’ll do it, Gil.” John looks so sincere, sounds so desperate, Lafayette has to wrap his fingers around the back of the chair again.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “If I tell you to back off and let me think, could you do that, this time?” John nods. “No texts, no phone calls, no punching anyone that I care about.” 

“Of course,” John says, his cheeks still a little red. “I swear.”

Lafayette thinks about what he’s giving up with André, everything that the two of them could have together, and he looks at John. His poor, pathetic-looking John. He loves him still, terribly and completely.

“I will call you in a few days.”

John’s head comes up and he meets his gaze. “You mean it?” he asks, voice quiet, like he’s afraid to be so hopeful.

“Yes, I mean it.”

“Thank you,” John says, letting it out in a rush of breath. He looks just the slightest bit elated. “Thank you, Gil. I’ll… just let you get back to breakfast or whatever.” 

John backs out of the apartment before Lafayette approaches the door. His legs feel shaky but he doesn’t think he looks outwardly stressed. John only looks up and offers him a tight-lipped smile as the elevator door closes. Lafayette closes and locks the door, waiting there for a moment for the past few minutes to start to feel real.

André is standing in front of the sink, breaking pieces of burned bacon up and dropping them down the drain; he’s staring off at nothing, seemingly lost in thought. Lafayette presses against his back and feeds his arms around his middle, resting his cheek against his shoulder.

André goes still for a moment and then he drops what’s left of the bacon and plants his hands against the edge of the counter.

“I burned the bacon,” he says.

Lafayette shrugs as best he can while holding onto André. “It’s all right.”

André’s bruised hand settles atop one of his, thumb brushing back and forth a little. “All settled, then?”

“We’re going to talk in a few days,” Lafayette says, voice barely breeching a whisper.

André lets out a sigh. “So that’s that.”

“John?” Lafayette asks. It takes André a moment to realize that he’s being spoken to.

“Yes, Gilbert?”

“Please still be my friend,” Lafayette practically whispers into his shoulder.

André huffs out a laugh, a little disbelieving, and Lafayette holds on tighter, until André turns in his grip and wraps his arms around his shoulders to pull him close.

“Only you, Laf, I swear,” he murmurs, setting his chin on Lafayette’s shoulder. 

“Don’t walk away from me completely,” Lafayette asks. “I would be miserable if you were no longer my friend.”

André takes a deep breath, one that Lafayette can practically feel in his own, and he nods. “All right.”

Lafayette doesn’t kiss him; he presses his face into André’s neck and closes his eyes. Fingers stroke through his curls, gently working knots free, until Lafayette thinks he could fall asleep standing up. The past few months have been so trying that he wouldn’t be surprised if he did.

André eases him back, though, and pulls his hair into a high bun without having to look at it.

“Come on,” he says, easing Lafayette back with his good hand. “Pancakes are getting cold.”

Lafayette follows and tries not to think about this space with André no longer in it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't think of anything that needs to be tagged but if you see anything, let me know.

André leaves in late October. His new job, writing speeches for the Franklin administration, doesn’t officially begin until November first, but he wants time to acclimate to the city and settle in to his new apartment.

Lafayette sits on his bed, watching him close up the last of his bags and look around the loft to see if he’s missed any of his personal effects. Lafayette tries not to let the nausea in his stomach show on his face. It’s been a week since John showed up to apologize for clocking André in the face, and John has kept his distance, maintaining radio silence as Lafayette had asked him to. It’s what he wanted, but the prospect of being so alone again, all of a sudden, is horribly unappealing.

“Laf,” André says, drawing his attention.

“Yes?”

“I said could you hand me that?” He’s pointing to the bedside table where the dock to charge his phone sits. 

Lafayette crawls up the bed to unhook it and hand it down to him. He sits back on his heels and rubs his palms against his thighs, feeling grossly anxious.

“I’m not going that far, Laf,” André says, looking up at him over the frames of his glasses.

“I know,” he says, because he does. He knows. “I will miss you, is all.”

André nods like he gets it. He tucks his phone dock away into a bag and zips it, and then he crawls up the bed to pull Lafayette down beside him. They lie there, staring at the ceiling together for a while, André’s arm around his shoulders and Lafayette’s hand on his belly.

“I’ll miss you too,” he says eventually.

Lafayette turns his nose into André’s shoulder and breathes in that lovely, familiar scent; he feels instantly calmer. He traces empty patterns on André’s belly, through his shirt, and blinks tiredly out into the space, now void of André’s personal touches. He doesn’t want this to end. 

“I don’t know where to go from here,” he says eventually.

André takes a deep breath and lets it out in a sigh, tightening his arm around Lafayette as he does. “You’re almost out of the woods, love,” André tells him quietly.

Lafayette closes his eyes. “I don’t know what I would have done without you, these past months.”

“Found some other ruggedly handsome Londoner to take to bed, probably.” He can hear the tease in André’s voice but he doesn’t like what he’s said.

“No. You know that is not—I could not have—“

André shushes him. “Kidding,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. Lafayette goes quiet and André sighs again; this time, it’s wistful. “Look, I have to say it, if things don’t work out with Laurens…”

“Please don’t,” Lafayette says, turning further into André’s shoulder and pinching his eyes shut. “I miss you already and you are still here with me. What will I do thinking of you constantly?” 

André doesn’t respond. His breathing is slow and deep and, when the minutes begin to creep by, Lafayette actually wonders if he’s fallen asleep. When he does speak, Lafayette almost thinks maybe it would have been better if he hadn’t at all.

“I could have loved you so much, Lafayette.” 

It’s all he can do to respond, “I know.”

 

\--

 

Thomas shows up the morning after André has gone, opening the door with his own key, bearing hot chocolate spiked with marshmallow vodka, and cinnamon bagels slathered in cream cheese. He lets Lafayette curl up beside him on the couch and mope. 

He stays when Lafayette falls asleep on him and he comes back that night to take up the other side of his bed without having to be asked. 

Thomas is easily the best friend he’s ever had. When he murmurs the sentiment between them in French, Thomas finds his hand and squeezes it in the dark.

 

\--

 

A week to the day after André has gone the front desk calls and tells him he has a delivery downstairs. It’s mid-day but Lafayette hasn’t made any effort to make himself presentable after running until his knee ached on the treadmill this morning. He heads downstairs in his sweats and a workout tank, barefoot. 

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but a deliveryman holding an obnoxiously large bouquet of sunflowers wasn’t it. He hands over the five he grabbed from the dish beside the front door and takes the flowers upstairs without reading the attached card. He’s mildly baffled because he can’t ever remember telling anyone over here that sunflowers are his favorite, but he’s willing to put money on André’s familiar cursive being inside the card. He sets them down on the coffee table and opens the envelope.

_Gilbert, I’m trying so hard to be patient but it’s not my forte, as you know. I miss you. —John_

Lafayette deflates, sinking down onto the armrest of the couch. He reads it over and over, John’s _actual_ handwriting, not a computer-printed message. John actually went somewhere and ordered his favorite flowers in person. He slumps over onto the couch and groans into the cushion.

He lies there, staring at the flowers through one eye, for a ridiculous amount of time, and then fishes his phone out of his pocket. He texts Thomas.

_John sent me my favorite flowers._

> Thomas (1:01pm): Tell him thank you.

_I just speak to him like that?_

> Thomas (1:02pm): Tell him you’re allergic, then.

Lafayette rolls onto his back, legs hanging over the armrest. _Not helpful._

> Thomas (1:04pm): Jesus H, Laf. You’re 22 years old, sack up and text the little rodent. Or you just gonna let him hang forever?

He huffs a breath and drops his phone on his chest. The ceiling doesn’t offer him any sort of advice, no matter how long he stares at it. Neither do the flowers, when he turns his head to look at them instead. He misses André. 

Steeling himself, he lifts his phone again and pulls up John’s name. He doesn’t really let himself think before he hits _call_. 

John picks up on the third ring. “Gil? Hey.”

Lafayette closes his eyes and takes a slow breath. “Hello, John.”

“I was hoping you’d call.”

“Thank you for the sunflowers.”

“They’re your favorite, right? I didn’t just make that up?” John laughs a little, and Lafayette can imagine him giving that little unsure smile down at the ground.

He opens his eyes and looks at his flowers again. “They are. I don’t remember ever telling you that.”

“You were really drunk,” John says, grin evident in his voice. “You bought a bunch of flowers from a lady on the subway and started handing them out to people.”

Lafayette laughs. “I remember. After the fireworks.”

“On the Fourth, yeah,” John confirms. “You hated the sunflowers because they were dyed blue but they looked green.”

He grins. “They were ugly.”

“I made sure these were the right color.” When Lafayette doesn’t respond right away, John goes on, “Do you like them?”

“I do, thank you.” He almost wishes it didn’t feel so good to speak to John so easily again. A part of him still wants to be angry with him, but the majority of him is exhausted from all of this. He wants to be happy. He gave up André for a chance to make this right with John and now he has to go through with it. He owes it to them all to try.

“I know I’ve said it a million times but I miss you, Gil,” John says quietly. 

Lafayette hesitates a moment, but he needs to be honest, he reminds himself. “I miss you too,” he lets himself say.

John takes an audible breath and seems to hold it. Lafayette counts the seconds of silence between them. “What do I have to do? Please. I’ll do anything, I swear. I just want you back; I want to go back to how we were.”

“I don’t know, John. You have damaged my trust in you.”

“How can I show you how sorry I am? That this’ll never, ever happen again?”

Lafayette rubs at his eyes with his fingertips. “I don’t _know_ , John. You are making me upset again already.”

John goes quiet on the other end of the line. His voice is tight, when he finally does speak again. “Can I see you? Can I take you out for lunch or something? I need to see you.”

Lafayette turns the idea over in his head a few times. He does want to see John, misses him, misses his smile, his freckles, his laugh, his giant hands, his soft hair, all of it. He misses all of John. He reminds himself again of what he has passed up with André to try to make this work once more. 

“Tell me something, John.”

“Anything,” John replies instantly.

“Did you tell your father when you broke up with that girl?” 

John hesitates for a moment, but he says, “yes.”

“What did you tell him, exactly?”

John exhales and it turns into a groan; Lafayette can just see him gripping a handful of his curls and tugging at it in frustration. 

“I told him that I couldn’t do it anymore. That I’m not straight, I can’t be straight, that I didn’t feel anything for Martha and I never could.”

“And what did he say?”

John huffs a laugh. “He said it didn’t matter if I loved her, I just had to be with her.”

Lafayette blinks up at the ceiling again. “And you said what?”

“That I couldn’t do that. He knew, Gil. He brought you up again instantly and I told him that… that I still loved you and you’re the one I wanna be with, and I can’t be with someone just to make him happy.” John’s voice is strained by the end of it, coming out hoarse and tight. “Do you love me, still?” he asks in that same tone. “Did I fuck it up that bad?”

“I still love you, John,” Lafayette says quietly.

John lets out a rush of breath and he laughs a little at the end of it. “Fuck, Gil, I didn’t love her. I didn’t feel anything for her; it’s just you. It’ll always be you.”

“What did your father tell you?” he asks, trying to keep his voice steady, ignoring what John has just said to him. This is important; Lafayette needs to know where he stands in all of this, and where Henry stands as well.

“He didn’t say much of anything,” John tells him. “He’s pissed, I know that, but he didn’t tell me he never wanted to see me again, like he did when I came out. He just told me… it doesn’t matter. I don’t care what he wants. I can’t be that person for him. I want to be the person who takes care of _you_ , who falls asleep beside _you_ every single night.”

“Non,” Lafayette says, “what did he say, John? You tell me.”

John goes quiet again for a long moment and when he speaks, his voice quavers. “That he’s disappointed in me. Doesn’t know why I can’t just be normal.” Lafayette lets his eyes fall shut again. He hates Henry Laurens, right now. “But,” John says, making his eyes open, “he did tell me he loved me before he hung up on me.”

That, Lafayette was not expecting. “That is good, John,” he says seriously.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess,” John agrees. “I know you don’t really talk about your parents but… do you even remember them at all? Anything?”

He shakes his head. “Not much. Small flashes from time to time.”

“I wanted to make my daddy so proud of me, growing up. I did everything he wanted me to do, especially after my mom died. I was like a little Henry.” Lafayette knows this, but he keeps silent, letting John talk. “I didn’t even get a chance to stop and think about who I was until I was going away to college, and it hadn’t fit in his plan for me to be gay, but how could I change it? I wasn’t his perfect little kid anymore, not that I ever really was, but now… now I was his queer kid. And I wasn’t gonna get married and have babies and pass on the name and all of that shit straight people don’t think that we can do. I was lost when he turned me out, you know that, I told you that.”

“Yes,” Lafayette agrees to keep him talking.

“I was in hell for months. I just wanted him back; I wanted him to be proud of me, like he was before. And when he was riding me about you, before you went back to France, I felt like that again. He grinds me down until I’m so fucking tired of feeling like a disappointment, that I want to do anything to make him love me again.”

“You should have told me when this was happening,” Lafayette murmurs.

“I know,” comes the quiet response. “But I don’t want you to get tired of hearing me complain about it. I don’t want you to get tired of _me_. I just wanted it to be like it was when I was growing up. I thought I could make that happen.”

“He loves you, John. You know that. He came around on it; he’s _still_ getting better. Or he was, anyway,” Lafayette says.

John makes another frustrated sound. “He loves me, yeah, I guess, but…” he trails off and sighs. “I want him to be _proud_ of me, and not talk to me like I’m some sideshow attraction with his last name.” He groans. “I’m not explaining it right. I don’t know how. I just wanted him to treat me like he does my brothers. I want him to respect me and love me and accept that I have a fucking boyfriend that I want to spend my whole fucking life with.”

Lafayette makes himself sit up. “I understand why you did what you did, John,” he says quietly.

There is a moment of hesitation before John responds in a voice so small that it breaks his heart a little. 

“You do?”

“Just because I do not like it does not mean I do not understand it.”

The silence between them stretches out and Lafayette reaches forward to pluck a petal from one of the sunflowers. He twists it between his fingers and watches it spin.

“I don’t know what you want me to do, Gil,” John finally says. “I just want to see you. I need to.”

Lafayette rubs the petal between his thumb and forefinger until it falls apart, leaving his fingertips stained yellow. 

“All right,” he agrees.

“Really?” John asks, perking up immediately. “Today?”

Lafayette hesitates for a moment before he nods to himself. “Yes. I will come see you. Where have you been staying?”

“The Hilton, by MSG.”

“You are still in a hotel?” Lafayette asks, feeling a little stunned by the realization.

“You’re gonna come here?” John asks, ignoring the question. “I’ll leave you a key at the front desk; you can just come up. Or, I mean, we could go to one of the bars or something downstairs; you don’t have to come to my room.”

“John,” Lafayette cuts off his tangent. “I am coming to talk. Relax.”

John lets out a breath that resembles a laugh at the end. “Right, yeah. I’ll be here. When are you coming?”

Lafayette looks down at his sweatpants and thinks about the shower he never took after working out. “Give me an hour. Maybe two.”

“All right. I’ll see you soon.” He starts and stops a couple of different sentences before he settles on, “thank you.”

Lafayette hangs up because he doesn’t know how to respond to that. He sits on the couch a moment, looking across at the blank tv screen, before he wills himself to stand. He takes his flowers into the kitchen and hunts for a vase. He doesn’t own one big enough, so he cuts the stems down and divides them into two, leaving one on the kitchen table, and taking the other with him to sit on his dresser.

The picture of him with John on his back sits to its left, where André had righted it weeks ago.

There is a pang in his chest at the thought of André, but he goes to shower without letting himself dwell. He’s made his decision, and now John needs to prove that he’s worth it.

 

\--

 

Lafayette has to use the key that he’d retrieved from the front desk to access the floor that John is staying on, but when he reaches his door, he knocks. John opens it, looking a little surprised.

“You got the key, right?”

“Seemed rude to just barge in,” he says, shrugging. 

John swings the door to his suite open wide, and Lafayette steps in, keeping his hands in his pockets so that he doesn’t do something silly like reach for John and hug him like he wants to. 

“Glad you came,” John says, rubbing his hands together nervously. He’s barefoot, in dark-washed skinny jeans that pool at the tops of his feet, and a plum colored deep v-neck. His hair is down and doesn’t look as pale as he had at the gallery showing; he looks good, aside from the new scar still forming on his cheek and the split in his bottom lip. 

“I said I would,” Lafayette tells him.

John nods and holds out his arm, gesturing Lafayette further into the room. The suite is ridiculously large with a separate bedroom, a living space, and a full kitchen. The view isn’t incredible, but they’re high up enough that he can see over the tops of some surrounding buildings. Lafayette steps over to the window and looks down at the street below; they’re up so far that the noise of traffic doesn’t reach.

“Are you hungry?” John asks, combing his fingers through his hair in a nervous gesture that Lafayette hasn’t seen on him since they first met. 

“I am fine,” he says. “Tea would be nice, though.”

John seems grateful for something to do, if the speed with which he moves into the kitchen is any indicator. He busies himself with boiling water and getting down mugs, while Lafayette wanders in after him and sits at the breakfast bar.

“You have been here ever since July?” Lafayette asks.

John nods, tucking his hair back behind his ear. “My father’s been paying for it.” He gives Lafayette a half-smile. “He was thrilled when you kicked me out.”

“I did not kick you out,” Lafayette says immediately. “You were—you thought I would let you stay while you dated other people? Were you out of your mind?”

“Nothing unfolded like I thought that it would, Gil,” John says, putting his hands down flat on the counter. “I didn’t know—I hadn’t met anyone yet. It was all… it was what my father wanted. I wasn’t thinking about anything passed you coming home and us talking about it.”

“You didn’t think at all,” Lafayette says, looking off again.

John sighs. “I don’t want to fight. It was a huge mistake. All of it. You don’t have to tell me because, believe me, I know.”

Lafayette spends a moment staring out the window. There isn’t much to see from right here; the building across the street is about it. But he needs time to organize his thoughts. John gives it to him. He prepares his tea the way that Lafayette likes it, with a splash of milk, and sets it on the bar top for him. John pushes himself up to sit on the counter, one leg under him, his own steaming mug sitting at his knee. 

“We should speak candidly about this, John, or I do not see how we will make anything of what we are now,” he says, turning back to look at him.

John nods, pushing his hair back again. “Of course. Anything. I’ll tell you anything.”

“Did you sleep with her?”

John blinks at him and drops his head, a flush creeping quickly over his cheeks.

“Kind of,” he admits. “I only… we only had, like, actual sex twice, but, I mean,” he shakes his head and moves his hand in a useless circle. “We did other things. Normally, I couldn’t get into it much. I couldn’t stay hard enough a lot of the time.”

He looks embarrassed, picking at the knee of his jeans, staring down at the counter. It wasn’t Lafayette’s intent, but he gets a little bit of smug satisfaction from knowing that John didn’t enjoy himself with her.

“Did you?” John asks, finally glancing up, his cheeks still red, especially around the new skin of his scar. “With… that guy, I mean. John whatever.”

“André.”

“Yeah. I saw the article on that French gossip site,” John admits. His eyes flick away from Lafayette’s for a moment, but he looks back immediately.

Lafayette considers him for a moment, knowing that no matter what the circumstances were, the truth is going to hurt John. But he doesn’t regret André and he won’t be ashamed of him either.

“Yes. We did.”

John nods, looking back down at his knee before he rubs at his eyes with his fingertips. “But you probably actually liked it.”

“I did.”

“Christ, Gil,” John says, looking at him again. “Come on.”

“You asked me. Do not try to make me feel bad about André, because I don’t. I liked him. I could have had everything that you took from me with him and I gave it all up because I couldn’t let you go,” Lafayette snaps.

John covers his face with his hands. “Okay, I—I get it. Fuck, Gil.” He rubs at his eyes and pulls both hands through his hair and then tucks them together in his lap. He looks tense, ready to snap from how tightly he’s holding himself. “Are you in love with him?” he asks in a rush.

Lafayette has considered this question a lot; he thought about it plenty before André left, and he’s spent enough time on the subject since he moved away. He knows how he feels and how he could have felt, and that they are two different things.

“I love him in that he is my friend and he will remain my friend. But I am not in love with him. I have never loved anyone but you, John,” he says seriously.

John lets out a breath and he nods, relaxing a little. “Okay. I can… okay.”

“He will stay my friend, John,” Lafayette reiterates. “You need to understand that. He is not gone from my life.” John nods again and Lafayette shakes his head. “I know you, John. You, who punch him in the face for kissing me; you are jealous.”

“Of course I’m jealous,” John snaps, cheeks going pink again. “This guy you thought about not taking me back for is all over you in public, and I’m—“

“Do not act like what you did was rational,” Lafayette interrupts. “You were out of control that night and I never want to see it again.” John nudges his mug with his finger and avoids Lafayette’s gaze. “I mean it, John. Never again.”

John nods and scrubs at his face again. “I know. I meant it when I apologized. I just want what we had back so fuckin’ bad. I’m desperate for it, Gil.”

“I know,” he murmurs. His tea is going cold. 

“Is there a chance? Do you wanna fix this?”

Lafayette considers his words carefully but he is unsure of how he means to express what he’s feeling. He switches to French. _”I miss you, John. I really do. I miss how things were, but maybe this was for the best.”_

_”How could it be for the best? I’m miserable without you. I feel like I haven’t even been functioning since I left.”_

_”Maybe now you see that your father shouldn’t be the deciding factor in your life. Maybe we both see that we were too young for this._ ”

“Oh, fuck, don’t say that,” John pleads, grabbing his hand. “Our age doesn’t have anything to do with it. I’ll be twenty-five in a week, for god’s sake.”

Lafayette doesn’t pull his hand away. He props his other elbow up on the bar top and sets his cheek in his hand and looks at him. “We are both young, John.”

“That doesn’t mean that I don’t know what I want,” John says quietly, squeezing his hand. “Now more than _ever_ , I know what I want.”

Lafayette says silent, holding John’s gaze and feeling his thumb rub back and forth across his knuckles. He knows that John is certain now. He knows how he himself feels. Now he needs to be able to trust John again.

“It might have been for the best because you know where you need to place your father. And that is outside of our relationship,” he says seriously. “I do not ever want to hear that you are doubting me from talking to him. Never again, John.”

John shakes his head. “Never,” he promises, “I swear.”

Lafayette pulls his hand free and rubs at his face, feeling suddenly exhausted, even though this conversation with John has been cathartic. 

“André is still my friend,” he says, meeting John’s gaze again. “You understand this, yes? That he will still be someone that I speak to and see as my friend?”

John’s face twists into a distasteful look but he agrees fairly readily with an, “all right.” Then, “I’m never gonna like him, though. I don’t know if I can act like I don’t hate him.”

“You don’t even know him,” Lafayette says.

“He fucked my boyfriend, I’m never going to like him,” John snaps, before he seems to realize what he’s said. He rubs the back of his neck and tugs at the curl of hair hanging down by his ear. “I mean, if you’re taking me back.” He looks Lafayette in the eye. “This is you taking me back, right?”

And isn’t that the question of the century? Isn’t that what Lafayette has been preparing himself for since that fight at the gallery? And still… he hesitates. Long enough that John begins to look uncomfortable. He slides off the counter and pads around to Lafayette, looking contrite and scared. 

“Gil?” he asks, so quietly that it’s almost a whisper. “Baby, please.”

He reaches out and Lafayette lets him take both of his hands. “We need to take things slow, John,” Lafayette says at last. “I do want you back. But I am not ready for you to come home yet.”

John lets out a breath in a rush and he nods. “Okay, yeah that’s—that’s fine. That’s understandable.”

He squeezes John’s hands and uses them to pull him closer, until he’s standing between Lafayette’s knees. John’s hands shake free of his and reach up to cup his cheeks. At first, he thinks John is going to kiss him, and he’s a deer in the headlights, unsure of how to react in a split second, but when he leans in, John merely presses their foreheads together and closes his eyes.

Lafayette puts his hands on John’s sides and curls his fingers into his shirt. 

“Thank you,” John whispers.

“Do not make me regret this, John,” Lafayette says seriously.

John shakes his head minimally. “Never again. I swear, baby girl, never again.”

 

\--

 

> André (9:09pm): So all is going well, then? He’s groveled enough to be forgiven?

_I don’t know. I am still confused, but I am giving him a chance,_ Lafayette texts back, sitting on the side of his bed that evening. Then, _How is your apartment? Do you like the city more than NYC?_

> André (9:11pm): There is no city like New York. My apartment is fine. Smaller than the loft. And missing a certain French touch here and there.

André texts him again before Lafayette can form a response.

> André (9:12pm): I’m sure it’ll feel like home before long.

_It will,_ Lafayette assures him. Then, _I hope I will see you again soon._

> André (9:16pm): I’ll be back to visit. I’ll always have business with Thomas. His interests are my interests now.

Lafayette can’t pretend to understand what political interests that Thomas and André now share with one another, so he doesn’t. 

_Send me pictures so I can help you decorate. It will look like a straight man lives there if you do it yourself._

André responds with a picture of him, hair tangled and pulled to one side, glaring through his glasses, lips pursed, and one middle finger up. Lafayette sends back a picture that looks like he’s blowing a kiss.

> André (9:20pm): I have to go to bed but keep me updated on Laurens. And yourself. Take it slow, Laf. Be good.

Lafayette’s eyes burn a little. _Sweet dreams, André._

 

\--

 

The notion of taking things slow with John is almost comical, considering their beginning. Lafayette picked him up after their first meeting in John’s figure drawing class, they had sex (incredibly intimate sex) after their first date, and were living together within five months of knowing one another. There was never a slow with them, it was a whirlwind from the start, and now, Lafayette hardly knows what to do. He knows every detail of John’s life, yet he’s not ready for them to fall back together like nothing has changed.

They meet every day and spend hours together, going out to eat or going to museums, or walking the city and talking to one another over coffee, like two people being hooked up by their friends. It feels a little ridiculous to him, so it must feel the same way to John, but John doesn’t ever object.

He holds Lafayette’s hand any chance that he gets, and kisses his cheek goodnight when they part in the evenings.

Lafayette hasn’t invited John back to the apartment since they started doing this, sticking to John’s hotel room when they want to lie around and not be so social outside. They’re sprawled on the living room floor, the coffee table pushed up against the wall to make room, while a movie plays on the tv. John’s head is in his lap and Lafayette is braiding what he can reach of his hair. 

“Question,” John says, sounding completely relaxed.

Lafayette hums his response.

“That guy, Thomas?” He turns his head on Lafayette’s thigh to look up at him. 

“What of him?”

“Where did you meet him?”

He puts his hand on John’s chest and traces the scar on his cheek with his other; the stiches have almost dissolved entirely. “In Paris. I think it must have been fate for us to find one another there and hit it off so well.”

“Where does he live?”

“The southern tip.”

John’s lips purse up like they do when he’s thinking. He glances back to the tv for a moment and then back up at Lafayette. “Am I gonna meet him?”

“Do you want to?” Lafayette asks.

John shrugs. “He’s like… your best friend, right?” He nods. “Well, then yeah, I wanna meet him.”

Lafayette looks from John to the window; it’s starting to get dark out, the sun fading from deep purple to light-polluted black.

“Are we doing something for your birthday?” he asks. “I could bring Thomas and you could bring Alexander and Hercules. If they will even talk to me, I mean.”

John sits up with a groan, moving to press his back to the couch beside him. He takes Lafayette’s hand. “They’re still your friends. They said you stopped talking to them after… I did what I did.”

It’s true, Lafayette did distance himself from the two of them, but his reasons still feel sound. He felt betrayed by the two of them for keeping John preparing to leave him a secret, and then keeping Martha a secret too. In the same moment that he understands that they were in a difficult place, he still feels a little pang of abandonment at their treatment of him.

“I don’t know that things can be the same anymore,” he says, looking down at their hands. John’s giant, rough hands are so warm and Lafayette has missed them on his skin. 

“If you can forgive me, you’ll work things out with them,” John assures him, leaning over to kiss his shoulder. “We can do something simple?” he offers. “The five of us can just… come here or something? I’ll get food and booze and we can just chill.”

Lafayette looks at him. “Won’t your father want to take you out, as he always does?”

John’s face tightens for a moment and he swallows audibly. “He’s not coming this year,” he says, looking back at the tv.

“Because you are with me again?” 

He’s anticipating the response, but when John nods, his eyes begin to tear up and then he’s pulling his hand free to cover them. Lafayette puts both arms around him and pulls John into his side. John practically melts at the touch, as starved for affection as Lafayette had been before he’d met André. 

He kisses the top of John’s head. “It’s all right, Jacky,” he murmurs into his hair.

John goes still for a moment and then he’s looking up, with tear brimming in his wide eyes. It takes a second for it to click, that he has called John by his nickname for the first time in over three months. John blinks and fresh tears roll down his cheeks. 

Before Lafayette can say anything, John is pulling him down into a kiss.

It stays chaste and Lafayette can taste the salt from his tears. He doesn’t pull back, because John doesn’t attempt to deepen it.

John’s mouth lingers against his own, his fingernails scraping against his bearded cheeks when his fingers curl into his palms and fall away entirely. It feels like it lasts an eternity and Lafayette feels that same spark of content he always has at John’s touch. 

When it breaks, John’s head tips forward and Lafayette kisses his forehead and pulls him in again; John settles against him with an arm around his waist. 

“Missed you,” John whispers over the low volume of the tv.

“I missed you too, Jacky.”

They don’t move until the credits have finished rolling.

 

\--

 

John walks him to the door of his hotel room that night and takes hold of Lafayette’s wrist when he reaches for the handle.

“Stay with me? Just tonight. Just to sleep,” John asks. “Please.”

A part of Lafayette wants to. He wants to crawl into bed with John and pull him close, but a bigger part of him isn’t ready for that.

“I can’t,” he says quietly. “Not tonight, John. Maybe I can soon but… not yet.”

John releases him, looking like a kicked puppy. He nods, raising his head again with a sniff, tucking his hair back behind his ears. 

“We’re doing better, right?” he asks, eyes red when they flick over to meet his.

“Yes,” Lafayette says seriously, taking John’s hand. “Much better.”

“I miss it,” John says, using his free hand to rub at his nose. “I miss sleeping in bed with someone who doesn’t kick me all night.”

Lafayette can’t help the sharp bark of laughter that erupts from him. He slaps his hand over his mouth but when John laughs, Lafayette laughs harder. 

“She try to kick you out of bed?” he teases. 

John nods, looking pained. “Nightly.”

“André snored a bit,” he offers in commiseration. 

“You talking in your sleep is about all I can take,” John says, still smiling a bit. 

Lafayette brings him closer and kisses him on the forehead, and then quickly on the mouth. “I do not talk in my sleep.”

“Do so.”

“Lies. Terrible lies.”

John lets him go when he opens the door, leaning against the jamb as Lafayette steps out into the hallway. 

“Text me when you get home,” John says. It’s barely past eleven, not late enough for John to worry about him, but he nods and agrees regardless.

“I will. And I will see you tomorrow.” He taps John on the nose. “Birthday boy.”

John grins, looking down at the ugly hotel carpet. “Kind of your birthday celebration too, though.”

John had texted him on his birthday, but Lafayette had ignored it. He’d celebrated by spending the day with Thomas and the night in André’s bed. 

“Get some sleep,” he says, tucking his hands into his pockets. “Goodnight.”

“Night, Gil,” John says, watching him from the doorway until the elevator door closes. 

 

\--

 

“Can’t believe you’re making me come to your boyfriend’s birthday party,” Thomas grumbles, shifting beside him as they wait for the elevator. He should look ridiculous, wearing burgundy skinny jeans and an even tighter black henley, cradling a stupidly expensive bottle of whiskey with a bright pink bow on it in his arms, but he looks good. Thomas always looks good.

“You are my best friend and I need your support,” Lafayette says as one of the elevators finally reaches the bank and opens with a ding. “And he is not yet my boyfriend. We are taking it slow.”

Thomas at least waits until the doors close on them again to ask, “You mean y’all just fuck slow or what?”

Lafayette elbows him. “We have only barely kissed, don’t be crude.”

“I’m sorry, then I can’t believe you’re making me come to the birthday party of the guy you dumped my friend and business associate for.”

It’s a tease, Lafayette knows that it is, but it still hits him right in the center of the chest. “Thomas, fuck,” he groans, tipping his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. “Please don’t.”

An arm comes around his shoulders and pulls him close. “Sorry. Bad joke.” Thomas presses a kiss to the top of his head and rubs at his bicep until Lafayette straightens up again.

“Alexander and Hercules will both be there and we have not spoken since the night at the club,” Lafayette says as the elevator slows. “It will be awkward. I need my friend with me.”

“I’m here, man,” Thomas says, gesturing Lafayette out of the elevator first, when the doors slide open. “Whatever you need.”

“I need you to stop mentioning André. It’s hard enough without you making me feel guilty,” Lafayette tells him, heading down the hall toward John’s room.

Before he can knock, Thomas turns him to face him. “I’m sorry,” he says seriously, pushing his glasses up with his free hand. “I’m a shit, I know that. Just tell me if I get outta line. I don’t always catch it before it comes out.”

Lafayette nods, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Thomas is a good friend. He knocks, loud enough to be heard over the noise of conversation in the room. 

John answers the door a moment later, looking good with his hair pulled up, wearing tight black jeans and a thin white shirt that cuts low on his chest. 

“Hey,” he greets them, eyes flicking from Lafayette to Thomas and then back again. “Glad you came.” He steps back, pulling the door open wide to let them in.

Thomas offers him the bottle of whiskey by the neck and John reaches out with both hands, but Thomas doesn’t let it go. 

“Nice scar,” he says.

Lafayette has set down his messenger bag and is in the process of toeing out of his boots, and he stops, arm braced against the wall, to look up at the two of them. John’s eyes go a little wide at mention and he freezes with both hands on the bottle, which Thomas has yet to let go of.

“Thanks,” John says eventually. Lafayette can hear the combative edge to it and he is already preparing to separate the two of them.

“I’m gonna tell you this one time, kid,” Thomas says, stepping in even closer, forcing John to tip his head back further to look up at him. “You hit my friend, he hit you back, you’re lucky it ended there. You hit him,” he says, indicating Lafayette with a tip of his head without breaking eye contact with John, “and I will wreck your shit, ya dig?”

Lafayette half expects John to snap back at him but instead he just nods and says, “Yeah, I got it.”

Thomas lets go of the bottle and John looks at him, a little flushed. “Gonna put this in the kitchen. Alex and Herc are out there.” He inclines his head and Lafayette nods.

“We’re coming,” he says, reaching out to snatch Thomas’s sleeve when he moves to follow. “Unnecessary,” is all he says once John is out of earshot.

Thomas sniffs haughtily. “Completely necessary. I’d annihilate that little shit.”

Lafayette has to hurry and kick out of his other boot to catch up with Thomas, who is already making his way into the kitchen. John has set the bottle of whiskey down on the counter, where a wide array of food has been arranged, along with some awful craft beer that his American friends seem to be completely enamored with.

“I hope you have wine,” Lafayette says, looking at the spread.

“Of course; in the fridge,” John says, coming back around the counter, wringing his hands a bit, looking nervous. “So, ahh, Thomas, you’ve… met Alex, I believe,” he says, gesturing to where Alexander sits at the breakfast bar.

Thomas takes his offered hand. “I don’t think that restraining you bodily at a club counts as formal introduction but sure.”

“Can we not do this all night?” Hercules asks, leaning against the counter with a beer in hand. “We all know what happened. We were all there. Shit went down, we’re moving on.” He sets his beer down and holds out his hand to Thomas. “Hercules Mulligan.”

“The tailor?” Thomas asks.

“Designer,” Hercules says.

“Perfect. I need one of those. Tell me about fall colors,” he says, sliding his arm around Hercules’s shoulders and leading him into the living area.

Lafayette watches them go with a feeling of slight disbelief. 

“What just happened?” Alexander asks, staring after them. He tilts his head to the side and makes a considering face. John smacks his arm. “What?”

John gives him a look and then turns back to Lafayette. “Thanks for coming.”

Lafayette rolls his eyes but he knows that the look on his face is fond. “It’s for your birthday, John, of course I would come.”

“And yours,” John says, stepping closer. “I have something for you. It’s in the bedroom.”

Alexander snorts and when John gives him a dirty look, gets up, taking his beer with him, following Hercules and Thomas’s voices into the living room area.

John is still glaring after him when Lafayette clears his throat. “Do you want to go get it or should I come with you?”

“Oh, yeah.” He holds up a finger. “Right back.”

Lafayette takes the opportunity to return to his bag in the entryway and retrieve his own gift for John. He sets the envelope down flat on the counter top and waits. A moment later, John returns with a box in hand, wrapped in black paper with a small gold bow in the corner.

“It’s ahh… well, here,” he says, handing it over and immediately stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I don’t even know if you’ll like it but—“

“I’m sure I will like it,” Lafayette assures him, pulling the paper apart. The black and yellow box within is immediately identifiable and Lafayette shakes his head, even as he sets it on the counter to open it. He knows what it is. “This is too much, John.”

He lifts the watch box from the outer box and opens it. 

“It’s the same one you wore in that shoot, remember?” John asks, stepping closer. “With the black face and the rose gold hands.” 

Lafayette looks over at him. “This really is too much,” he says again. Far too much. Far too expensive.

John just shakes his head, reaching through his arms to take the watch out and open the clasp. He holds it out insistently until Lafayette fits his hand through it. He watches John clasp it and set the face right for him.

“Fits good. You like it?”

Lafayette looks down at it. He remembers the shoot he’d worn it for last year, dressed to the nines and holding a topless female model against him, hand spanning the small of her back, watch front and center. He also remembers telling John how he had hated to give the watch back up afterward. He could have bought it for himself but he could hear his grandmama’s voice in his head, telling him it was too excessive and that he didn’t _need_ it. John has remembered this for almost a year and gotten its identical match for him.

“I love it. Thank you,” he says, reaching over to pull John up, by the jaw, for a quick kiss.

He glances down at it again with a smile before he picks up the envelope containing his own gift, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious. “My present to you feels silly, now.”

John is still a little doe-eyed from the kiss, but he perks up even further when he notices that Lafayette has something for him.

“I want it, though.” He makes a gimme motion with his fingers. “Please?” His innocent little smile shows all of his perfect teeth and Lafayette has never not been a sucker for that. He hands it over.

John opens the envelope with careful fingers and pulls out several sheets of paper. He looks a little bit confused as he reads.

“Here,” Lafayette says, reaching for the final sheet. “Start here.”

“What is it?”

“That is the endangered tortoise that I preserved in your name. She is over a hundred years old and she just had babies. You get to name this one,” he says, pointing at the one that is circled in the picture. 

It had felt like a fun idea for a gift at the time, but now that John has given him this incredible, expensive watch, he feels stupid. Lafayette has given him practically nothing.

But John looks up, positively beaming. “You got me a turtle?”

“A tortoise,” Lafayette corrects. “But yes.”

“And I can name it whatever I want?” 

Lafayette nods. “There are forms to fill out in there. You mail them back and that one will be yours, basically. Plus the mama.” John is still smiling at him. “It is… stupid, I know, I am sorry. I had no idea you would be getting me something like this. I just thought you would—“

“You got me a baby endangered tortoise. I love it,” John says, beaming at him and then looking down at the picture again. “I can’t believe you even remembered that turtle thing.”

After figure drawing, John had moved on to animals (turtles, specifically) and Lafayette still would swear up and down that he found John’s sketches in every single book and magazine that he owned, on every piece of mail that he ever received, and on any and all pieces of paper that he left lying around.

“Maybe now you will get the proportions correct,” Lafayette says with a grin. John slaps the papers down on the counter and gives him an unimpressed look.

“Excuse me, but my turtles were perfect.”

“It cannot be coincidence that you dropped your art classes after that semester,” Lafayette teases, pushing his glasses up.

“Wait, you have—“ John gestures at his eyes but then just reaches out and takes his glasses carefully off of his face. “You have a smudge,” he says, cleaning them off with the hem of his shirt. 

There is a familiar pang in his chest at the gesture. John taking care of him has never not made him feel good. It’s something that he has sorely missed these past few months, even with André’s gentle care taking its place.

“Thank you,” he says quietly when John hands his glasses back. He holds them up to look through the lenses and then sets them back on his nose, after deeming them spotless.

“Why are you wearing them all the time?” John asks, picking at the edges of his paper stack. “Not that I don’t like them, but you never used to wear them so much. Is your vision getting worse?”

Lafayette shrugs. In truth, he stopped wearing his contacts so much because, in all of their time together, André had never once worn his, even though Lafayette had seen them in his bathroom. He just got out of the habit of it, but he doesn’t think John will want to hear that. 

“Just lazy,” he says, shrugging a bit.

John nods and picks up the picture of his tortoise again, the grin quickly returning to his face.

“What’s that?” Thomas asks, coming into the kitchen and heading straight for the refrigerator. 

“Gil got me a turtle for my birthday.”

Thomas lets the refrigerator door close without getting anything from it. “He what?”

“He adopted a turtle for me to name.”

“Tortoise,” Lafayette says.

“Yeah, that.”

Thomas narrows his eyes and looks between the two of them. He gestures to the empty watch box on the counter. “He got you a Breitling?” Lafayette holds his wrist up and nods. “And you got him a turtle.”

“Tortoise,” John corrects this time.

“And you’re happy about that?” 

John looks down at the picture and then holds it up so that Thomas can see it. “Yeah, it’s a baby, though. Look how cute. I love him already.”

Thomas continues to stare at the two of them with a look of mild distaste. He finally grabs a beer from the refrigerator and walks off, shaking his head. 

“Y’all’re fuckin’ weird.”

Lafayette looks down at his watch and again feels that sinking inadequacy. 

“Hey,” John says, nudging him with his elbow. When Lafayette looks at him, he’s holding the picture up and smiling. “I love him. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Lafayette says quietly.

“Can I kiss you?” John asks. 

Lafayette doesn’t have to really think about it; he nods. John leans in and kisses him sweet and careful, a light press of their lips. He pulls back for just a moment and then leans in to kiss him again. And again. Lafayette lets him, kissing him back each time. The tip of John’s tongue touches his bottom lip and Lafayette doesn’t hesitate to let his lips part, just slightly, and brush it with his own.

John groans quietly, pulling back enough to murmur his name, and then lean in to kiss him again. It stays shallow, their tongues brushing before pulling back a few times, then John tips his head to the side and reaches up to cup the back of his neck. John kisses him for real. Lafayette sucks at his tongue when it pushes into his mouth, and kisses him back. 

It’s nice. It’s too nice. It feels so good. Like they’ve never been apart.

Lafayette pulls out of the kiss, lifting his head up. John leans in, trying to follow for a brief moment before he seems to remember himself and he stands upright again, letting go of his neck.

The silence between them is thick and awkward for a moment before John clears his throat and says, “thanks. For that too. I missed that.”

Lafayette nods, not trusting his voice right away. “Me too,” he admits in a quiet whisper. 

“You wanna eat?” 

He nods again and John gathers up his papers and tucks them away, while Lafayette closes up his watch box and sets it aside. John eventually calls to the rest of them that they’re about to start eating, and Lafayette tries to pull himself back together. 

When Thomas comes back into the room, he slides an arm around his shoulders and asks him, “You good, man?” Lafayette nods and Thomas gives him a little squeeze. “Alex sucks,” he murmurs against his ear.

Lafayette laughs so loud that the rest of them look and Alexander demands to know what was said.

 

\--

 

As the night wears on, their friends start to drop off. Hercules goes first, and Alexander follows soon after. Lafayette had spoken to both of them quite a bit throughout the evening and he’s more satisfied with where they are now than he had been before. Things may be a bit awkward for a while but Hercules had told him, just as he had the night at the club, that Lafayette had pulled away from them first, and he knows that it’s true.

They’ll get there, he knows. But, like him and John, it’s going to take time.

He walks Thomas to the door, after he’s shaken hands with John, and Thomas asks him quietly, “Are you sure you wanna stay? You don’t have to. You can come home with me, if you don’t wanna be alone or whatever.”

Lafayette shakes his head. “No, but thank you. I am good. I want to stay.”

Thomas’ mouth twists a bit but he nods. “Text me if you change your mind.”

“I will,” he promises. 

Thomas pulls him into a hug and pats him so hard on the back that it hurts. They tell each other goodnight and he watches as Thomas disappears into the elevator.

John is cleaning up in the kitchen when Lafayette pads back in. 

“You leaving?” he asks, only glancing up for a moment from where he’s stacking things into the dishwasher. His voice sounds a bit strained, like he’s attempting at nonchalance.

“Actually,” Lafayette says, leaning against the cupboards behind him, “I was thinking I might stay. If you don’t mind?”

John straightens up and turns to face him, looking surprised. “Really?” he asks. “You can, of course you can. Did you bring pajamas? I have a pair of your sweatpants,” he says in a rush. “I mean, I… yeah, I took ‘em.”

Lafayette huffs a laugh and looks down at his bare feet.

“I would like to stay, yes. But I should sleep on the couch, I think.” When he looks up, John looks flustered and a little embarrassed.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s—that’s fine.” He gestures toward the bedroom with his thumb. “I’ll just… get you something to wear.”

John abandons the dishes so Lafayette picks up where he left off, wiping down the counter and tossing things in the trash. When he comes back, John has a pair of his plaid pajama bottoms folded up with a non-descript t-shirt in his hands and he holds them out. 

“You can use the bathroom,” he says. “I’ll get some blankets for the couch.” 

John is disappointed, Lafayette knows, but as much as he wants to climb into bed with him again, he just doesn’t know if it’s a good idea. He grabs his messenger bag and heads into John’s bathroom. He changes and brushes his teeth, and tucks his clothes away; when he comes out, John is sitting on the bed in the sweats he wore to bed all last winter, and a University of South Carolina t-shirt that Lafayette has never seen before.

“All made up,” he says quietly, pushing himself back to his feet. “If you need anything…”

Lafayette nods. He wants to kiss John goodnight, but he doesn’t know if that’s a good idea either. Their kisses in the kitchen earlier were a lot, more than Lafayette had intended. He tells himself to go slow, to not fall back into old behaviors with John just because they’re comfortable, but it’s proving to be harder than he’d anticipated. Especially because of how much he _wants_ to kiss John.

He shifts the strap of his bag on his shoulder and says, “Thank you.”

John shifts back and forth on his feet for a moment before he seems to understand that Lafayette isn’t making a move toward him. 

“Okay,” he says, like he’s steeling himself against something potentially awful. “Goodnight, Gil.”

Lafayette smiles at him and steps out into the darkened living room.

John doesn’t fully close the door behind him, so there is enough light for him to see by to get himself settled on the couch. John has left him a stack of folded blankets and a pillow from his own bed. Lafayette tries to make himself comfortable, lying out the blankets and stretching out against the cushions. He settles on his back and listens as John moves around in his room, imagining him getting ready for bed from memory. The light clicks off before long and then there is silence. 

He counts his own breaths and feels the tick of seconds go by on his brand new watch. He taps the watch face under the blankets and bites at his lip. He still can’t believe John bought this for him, that he even remembered it.

After a while, it starts to rain. Lafayette hopes, at first, that the pattering on the window will make him tired, but it doesn’t seem to lull him any closer to sleep than he has been since he laid down. He can’t see a clock and it’s just dark enough that he can’t read his watch; he doesn’t know how long he’s laid here. It feels like whole hours are dragging by but he knows it can’t have been more than an hour or so.

It’s frustrating and it’s annoying that he’s out here and John is in the other room, when he knows that they could be together. He knows that it’s his decision. He knows that he’s trying to do what’s best for the both of them. He knows it, he’s told himself the same things over and over and over again but it doesn’t make him feel any different.

He misses John and he can’t deny himself what he wants. He’s tired of doing that. He gave up too much for the opportunity to have this again and he wants it.

It only takes him a moment to toss the blankets aside and get up. The rush of air in the room is cold and makes goosebumps crawl over his arms immediately. He pads quietly through the dark to John’s doorway and listens. There are no sounds from inside. Lafayette eases the door open anyway. He’s halfway to the bed when John pushes himself up on his elbow.

“Gil?” he whispers, fully alert like he’d been lying in here thinking about the same things that have been plaguing Lafayette all night. He probably has been, Lafayette figures.

He doesn’t say a word. He comes to the side of the bed that John isn’t occupying and pulls the covers back. John scoots further over, making room for him without a word or a moment of hesitation. Lafayette settles under the blankets, already warm from John’s body heat, and listens to their breathing in the dark. 

John doesn’t make a move to touch him. Lafayette is grateful for that, for John respecting his need for space, but right now, he wants John close. 

“Put your back to me,” he murmurs quietly, breaking the stillness around them.

John doesn’t hesitate. He shifts over onto his side and turns his back to him. Lafayette closes the distance, shifting into a familiar position behind him, tucking his arm under John’s pillow and pulling him close with an arm around his waist. John lets out a shuddery sigh and turns his face into his own bicep.

“Is this all right?” Lafayette asks.

John nods, his hair brushing Lafayette’s face. He pulls John in tighter, pressing his chest against his back, and settling down. John’s hand finds his and clasps over it, holding tightly. 

“Missed you,” John whispers, his voice tight in his throat.

Lafayette rests his head against John’s pillow and closes his eyes. They still fit together, just as well as they always have, and for that, Lafayette is grateful. The sound of the rain almost swallows up his quiet reply. 

“Missed you too, Jacky.”

 

\--

 

It’s still raining when Lafayette wakes up. The room is dark; the only light coming in through the gap in the curtains is dulled by the rain clouds hanging thickly over the city. He can’t judge what time it is and John is still asleep on his arm, keeping him immobile. He lies still for a while, feeling John’s breaths through his back, the limp hand still touching his own, the way his face is smoothed out in sleep.

When the need to pee becomes overwhelming, he gently shakes John awake.

“John,” he murmurs. John makes a sound but he doesn’t move. “Jacky, darling, here… lift up,” he says, pushing at John’s shoulder to lift him up off of his arm so that he can tug it free.

John groans and rolls onto his back. Lafayette knows his next move will be to cling, so he gets up as quickly as he can while John reaches out in a blind grab for him.

“No,” he whines, eyes pinching further shut. “Come back. ‘m cold, Gil.”

“A moment, John,” he promises. John makes a displeased sound into his pillow but he still hasn’t opened his eyes. 

Lafayette makes his way into the bathroom, rubbing at his sleeping arm all the while. He takes a piss and brushes his teeth, and his watch catches the light. He’d forgotten about it and he smiles when he looks down at it. It tells him that it’s still only just after ten in the morning.

John is sitting up on the side of the bed, rubbing at his eyes, when Lafayette exits the bathroom. He has never been a morning person, in all of the time that Lafayette has known him, and living alone has obviously not changed that. John practically staggers passed him into the bathroom and pushes the door mostly shut without glancing back at him.

Lafayette uses the opportunity to look around the room. He hasn’t been into the bedroom since he’s started coming to see John. They’ve always spent their time in the living room or kitchen, but never in here. Now, he sees that John has really moved himself in here. His clothes hang in the closet, his schoolbooks are stacked high on one bedside table and on the floor beside it. There are open notebooks and pens, his laptop on the desk in the corner beside empty coffee mugs, shoes lined up against the wall, and there on John’s nightstand, is the framed picture of the two of them missing from Lafayette’s dresser.

He picks it up and looks down at it, feeling like he’s seeing it for the first time in his life, not just the first time in months. The two of them are sitting on Alexander’s couch, talking, their fingers hooked together, and they both look so happy to just be near one another.

“You know, when I left,” John says quietly, coming to stand beside him, looking down at the picture as well, “I always thought it would be temporary. Even when you told me to go, I didn’t think it would last like this. I didn’t think that I should get an apartment or move in with Martha, or anything. I always saw myself coming back.” Lafayette looks at him when John takes the frame from his hands and brushes his fingertips over it. “I don’t know what I was thinking but I never expected this.” He sets the picture down carefully and angles it back toward the bed. “I’m sorry,” he says for the countless time.

Lafayette shakes his head. “I don’t want to hear that.”

“What do you want to hear?” John asks, voice still soft with sleep. “If you would just tell me what to say or do, I’d give that to you, Gil.”

Lafayette doesn’t know what he still needs to hear from John, if anything. He doesn’t know; he’s too tired from all of this to care. Just like last night, when he climbed into bed with John, he’s tired of denying himself what he wants. 

He reaches forward and takes John’s face in his hands. John comes easily and willingly, hands going instantly to Lafayette’s sides as he tilts his head up. He kisses John, sucking on his tongue, tasting the lingering hint of his toothpaste, eating the whimper right out of his mouth.

“You tell me, Jacky,” Lafayette murmurs into his mouth, biting at his bottom lip. “Tell me what you want from me.”

John’s arms wind around his neck and he kisses Lafayette so hard that their teeth clack together. 

“Take me back,” he rasps. “Please. Just say you will for good, and then do it.”

“I have already,” Lafayette replies.

“Tell me you forgive me, then,” John begs between desperate kisses. His fingers twist in Lafayette’s hair when his hands slide down John’s back to squeeze his ass. John whimpers and grinds himself forward on unsteady feet.

“I forgive you, John,” Lafayette says. And he means it.

John sucks in a pained sounding breath and pulls back. “Do you really?” he whispers, his pupils blown out and his eyes wet. “You’re not just saying it, are you?”

Lafayette kisses him as he bends a bit, dropping his hands to John’s thighs and pulling him up. John lifts himself with his arms leveraged on Lafayette’s shoulders, and grips his waist with his thighs. John is taller than him like this, and he bends his neck to kiss him again.

“Gil?” he asks, stroking his thumbs against his cheeks.

“I forgive you, Jack,” Lafayette says again tightening his arms around John’s waist to keep him in place. “We can figure the rest of it out later, yes?”

John nods eagerly and holds on as Lafayette turns and carries him the short distance to the bed. He lays John out and crawls between his thighs, immediately lowering himself down to kiss him again. John clings, holding him tightly, pushing up against him with his cock already going hard. 

They rock together, Lafayette grinding down, holding him to the bed with his hip and the other hand fisted in his hair so that he can bite at his neck. John is fully hard within minutes and Lafayette is right behind him. 

“Oh god,” John breathes, pulling at his shirt, tugging it up to his shoulders and digging into his skin with his nails. “Fuck, you feel so good. I missed this so much, Gil, you have no idea. _Fuck_.”

Lafayette pushes himself up to pull his shirt up over his head. He fumbles for his glasses on the nightstand as John arches under him to strip off his own shirt. John comes into clear view, reaching up to put his hands on Lafayette’s belly as soon as they’re free. He looks gorgeous, all hard muscles and soft skin, tied up neatly in his pretty little frame. 

“Gil,” John breathes, fingers tracing the cut of his hips. “Baby, can I touch you?” He hooks his fingers in the waist of Lafayette’s sweats and tugs down just enough to scratch his nails through his pubic hair. 

Lafayette leans over him and kisses him again, before he murmurs a soft, “yes,” into his mouth. John doesn’t waste any time, gripping Lafayette’s pajama bottoms and tugging them down to his knees. A hand immediately wraps around his cock and strokes, tight and dry. 

John whimpers and tugs at him harder. “Oh fuck, oh my god,” he gasps, breaking the kiss to look down between them. Lafayette holds himself up on his hands and watches John’s face as he touches him. It feels good; John knows just how to stroke him, where to thumb under the head, how to tease under his foreskin. John knows how to make him feel good, even though he’s not doing much of anything besides tugging at him with an eager hand right now.

It takes a moment for Lafayette to remember that John hasn’t touched a man in months. He allows him this until the touch of his hand becomes too much, and grabs his wrist. John looks up at him, startled.

“Too dry,” he rasps. “And you will make me come too soon that way.”

“Will you fuck me?” John asks, pushing his own sweats down. His erection springs free, lying against his belly, beautiful and hard and wet at the head; Lafayette’s mouth waters just looking at it. “Please? Gilbert, please—“

Lafayette quiets him with a hard kiss. “Do you have anything?” he asks, sitting back on his heels to pull John’s sweats the rest of the way off.

“Yeah, here,” he says, twisting the moment that he’s free to rummage in the nightstand. He comes back with a bottle of lube that is more than half gone. Lafayette lifts it to look and then raises his eyebrow at John, who flushes. “I’ve been lonely,” he defends. 

“Condom?” Lafayette asks, popping the cap on the lube.

“I—do we have to?” he asks, fingers twisting in the sheets. He’s sprawled out on his back, knees bent and open, staring up at Lafayette between them, looking like every wet dream he’s ever had in his life, and it’s almost enough to distract him. 

“We should,” Lafayette says. “Do you have one?”

John sits up, putting his hands on Lafayette’s chest. “I never… I haven’t gone without one since we broke up. It’s still okay. Unless you did?” he asks, voice going quiet at the end. Lafayette shakes his head and John’s face is already smoothing out with relief, but he stops him from lying back down.

“John, no. We can’t. I won’t. Not until we get a test again.” 

John’s eyebrows bunch up. “We don’t have to,” he insists, touching Lafayette’s chin and then his cheeks, following with his mouth. “It’s all right. I want you like this.”

Lafayette closes his eyes a moment and prays for strength. John’s fist closes on his cock again and starts to stroke him off.

“Can I have this? Please? I want you to come in me. Let me feel it again.” John continues to rasp filth against his skin and he touches him until Lafayette is panting.

“No, stop this,” he finally snaps, pushing John’s hand away and climbing from the bed. His knees are wobbly when he stands.

John grabs for him. “Wait, I’m sorry—“ he starts, but Lafayette cuts him off.

“We will use a condom this time or do nothing at all.” He makes his way to his messenger bag and digs through it. He still has two of the condoms that André favored in the inside pocket. He grabs one and ignores the rest of it, climbing back up the bed to settle between John’s legs.

John looks a little bit embarrassed as he lies back down, but Lafayette kisses the insides of his knees to relax him. He rolls the condom down his cock and takes the lube when John hands it to him again, and slicks his fingers. 

John opens up beautifully for him. He’s tighter than Lafayette can remember, but eager and responsive all the same. He jerks when Lafayette rubs his fingertip against his prostate, and practically cries for it when he pushes in a third finger. Lafayette takes his time, stretches him until he’s certain that John is ready, and beyond, until John is pulling at his hair and begging.

“You gotta stop, I’m gonna come, Gil,” he pants. “Now. Please, baby girl, please.”

Lafayette strokes himself with his slick fist and then wipes his hand off on the covers. John pulls him close while Lafayette lines himself up. He sinks in, steady but fast, John whining the whole time.

“Oh my god,” John gasps, clutching at his shoulders. “I didn’t think—oh fuck, I missed this. I missed you.”

“Okay?” Lafayette manages to pant. He wants to say more but his English is fleeing from him as he shifts between John’s legs and settles his weight.

John nods, turning his head to blindly seek out his mouth. “Fuck me,” he whispers. And Lafayette does.

It’s a blur. Once his hips start moving, John’s cries drown out everything else. Nails rake up and down his back, heels dig into his ass, pulling him in faster and harder as John begs him for it. He kisses John, trying to quiet him, and John just clings to him more. 

He feels so good, so hot and so wet, tight around his cock and grinding up against his belly. John is lost to it, gasping his name and pleading whenever he has the breath for it. He says mostly nonsense, but Lafayette can pick up small snippets. 

_So good. Like that, just like that. Baby, please. Missed you, missed your cock. Love you so much._

Lafayette shudders, his hips losing rhythm. He pushes John’s legs up with his arms and pounds into him, their hips smacking together, loud over the sound of rain against the window. He spares a thought to anyone in the adjacent room as he makes John cry out for him.

John fumbles suddenly for his own cock, pulling at it for only a moment before he comes, spurting up over his belly and chest in a few thick pulses. He tightens around Lafayette, his entire body clenching with the force of it, and he arches into his own touch. His mouth falls open but no sound comes out, save for his gasping breaths as he shakes.

Lafayette doesn’t slow his thrusts, fucking John through it until he’s gripping at his shoulders and clenching his eyes.

“Too much, too much,” he gasps, biting at his lip when Lafayette doesn’t stop. 

“I’m almost there,” Lafayette murmurs, biting at his chin. “You are so beautiful, darling. Can you make me come? Can I finish in you?”

“Oh god, Gil, I don’t know if I can. It’s… it’s so much, fuck.” He leans up off the pillow and buries his face into Lafayette’s sweaty neck. “Are you… almost?”

“Can I continue?” Lafayette asks, licking at his sweaty cheek. John whimpers but nods. “You feel like heaven.”

John whimpers again, pulling him down against his chest with both arms around his neck, and he bites into his shoulder. Lafayette jerks, thrusting a few more times before he’s coming suddenly. He chokes on his own breath as his hips snap forward over and over until his orgasm subsides.

Lafayette collapses on top of him, panting for breath. His entire body shakes as he reaches down to pull out of John. He tugs off the condom but can’t bring himself to let go of John long enough to tie it, so he holds it awkwardly off to the side as he fights to get his breath back.

John’s knees bracket his body, keeping him close and nestled snugly against him. He holds Lafayette with one arm around his shoulders, and reaches for the condom with the other.

“Gimme,” he says, voice shot all to hell. Lafayette hands it to him to tie off and drop onto the floor. John snuggles down further with him, cradling his head in both of his arms. “That was so fucking good,” he murmurs into Lafayette’s sweaty hair.

Lafayette nods against his chest, heart finally slowing back to a normal pace. 

“It was perfect,” he rasps, kissing at John’s chest, then his neck, and then his lips. He rests his elbows on either side of John’s head and traces his eyebrows over and over with his fingertips.

John leans up to kiss him again, soft and slow. Thunder rumbles outside as the rain picks up. 

“Shower and then breakfast?” John asks. Lafayette nods; when he gathers the energy, he gets up and helps John into the bathroom. He tries not to grin at the way he limps, but he figures he fails because John smacks him on the chest before he climbs into the shower.

 

\--

 

Lafayette is done before John, so he dresses and orders them room service. He sits on the couch in the living room and checks his phone. There is a text from Thomas and one from André.

> Thomas (9:00am): You spend the night??? You smash it? You rock his world so hard he cried?????

Lafayette rubs his eyes under his glasses as he laughs. 

_Last night we slept. This morning I made him cry for me._

Thomas’s response comes within the minute.

> Thomas (11:40am): MY MAN.

Another follows but it’s just a series of praying hands and weeping face emojis. Lafayette grins and switches over to read André’s.

> André (10:02am): How was the birthday party?

Lafayette hesitates. He can hear John moving around in the bedroom, getting dressed; he will be out here soon and their food will arrive any minute now. He wants to tell André the truth but he doesn’t know if it will be welcomed news. His fingers hover over the keys for too long, and then John is dropping down beside him with a wince. 

“Don’t laugh,” John grumbles, pulling his feet up and leaning into his side. “Who’re you talking to?” He looks. “Oh.”

“Don’t pout,” Lafayette says. “He is merely checking in.”

John wraps both of his hands around his arm and presses his mouth to his bicep. He doesn’t move, but he does mumble, “I’m not pouting.”

Lafayette looks at him over his glasses. “He was very good to me in your absence.” John closes his eyes.

“Don’t tell me that.”

“I already tell you that I forgive you and that I have taken you back. André is not a threat to you, John,” Lafayette explains patiently. “I tell you he will remain my friend. Yes?”

John heaves a sigh but nods. “Yeah. I know.” He waves a hand at Lafayette’s phone. “Go ahead. Talk away. Just… you’re mine again, right?”

Lafayette wants to shake John a bit. He’s said it a few times now, but John keeps asking him to repeat it. When he looks again, John is still curled up beside him, clinging to his arm, looking small in every way imaginable. And Lafayette just finds himself sighing.

“Yes, Jack.”

Their room service arrives and John gets up to get it. Lafayette uses the opportunity to tap out a response to André.

_It was good. John and I are good. Back together, as he keeps asking me. I don’t think he believes it’s real yet, but I will show him. Are you good? I worry about you there alone._

He locks his phone again, after the message sends, not expecting to hear back right away, but his phone buzzes before he can set it down again.

> André (11:45am): I’m fine, Laf. As long as you’re happy with how things have played out with him, I will be happy for you.

And then,

> André (11:46am): Although I do miss you, it’s getting easier. Don’t disappear, all right? Don’t make me read about your life on internet tabloids.

_Promise me you won’t vanish as well._

> André (11:47am): I promise.

_Me too._

“Food’s in the kitchen,” John calls. Lafayette leaves his phone on the coffee table and goes. John is drinking orange juice out of a coffee mug, while sitting on the counter next to a plate of bacon.

“You spoil me,” Lafayette laughs, reaching for one of the strips and taking a bite. John offers him his orange juice and strokes at his hair as Lafayette comes to stand between his knees.

“Can I ask you something?” John asks, still petting at him. Lafayette nods. “I’m not trying to pressure you into anything, I swear, I just want to know.”

John doesn’t continue so Lafayette nods again. “Yes, go ahead.”

John purses his lips and looks down between them, like he’s not sure how to say what he’s thinking. Lafayette gives him time to organize his thoughts, breaking off bites of bacon while he waits.

“I just wanna know,” he says again, looking up with a sigh, “when can I come home?”

Lafayette sets what’s left of his strip of bacon back down on the plate and wipes his fingers on his pant legs. John watches him in silence, drawing his teeth over his bottom lip. He adjusts his glasses and looks up at John.

“So much for slow,” Lafayette says quietly.

John huffs. “We just had sex, Gil. We’re passed slow, aren’t we? I love you, you… you love me, right?” 

“Of course I do.”

“Then… let me come home. I don’t wanna stay here without you.” John rubs at his eyes. “Please.”

Lafayette drops his head, shifting his weight to one leg, and looking down between them at his own bare feet. He and John have come quite a way with one another, he reasons. He’s already determined that he’s tired of keeping what he wants at bay, that he wants to be with John again, that John is fully committed to him again. There is a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach that is whispering _too soon, too soon_ , but he also hears his grandmama telling him to follow his heart. 

“What will you tell your father?” he asks when he looks up again.

“God, Gil, why does it matter?” John grasps his neck in both hands. “He’s gonna be pissed off no matter what. But…you always say he’ll get over it, right?” Lafayette nods. “Then I’ll tell him that I begged until you took me back.”

“John,” Lafayette groans. Embarrassing John to his father is not what he wants.

“Why are you so fucking frustrating?” John asks. “I swear to you, I am completely in this with you. I wanna be with you all the time again. I want you to be there when I get back from classes. I want you to cook for me again. I want to kiss you every single night. I want you to fuck me all the time, like you just did. I wanna come _home_.”

Lafayette kisses him quiet. “All right,” he murmurs against John’s lips.

“’All right’ what?” John mumbles, mouth still pulled down into a pout.

“Come home with me.”

John pulls back to look him in the eye for a moment, and Lafayette loses his breath when John pulls him into a crushing hug. His legs tug Lafayette right into the counter. He laughs into John’s neck before he wraps him up in his arms again. 

John presses kisses to his cheeks and up over his forehead and down his nose. Lafayette grins at the gentle treatment. He has missed this so much, and now that he has it, it hardly feels like it could be real. John cradles him close, not letting go until after their breakfast has gone cold, but Lafayette doesn’t mind.

They sit side by side on the couch, keeping each other warm while they eat reheated pancakes and listen to the rain pattering against the window. 

John moves home on a Tuesday.

**Author's Note:**

> All done! It's not the end of the verse, I promise there is more to come (André will find love, this is about to be a "Turn" crossover because I have no self control). Sorry about the deleted post last weekend, but it's here and it's done and I hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> **Parts 3 and 4 (currently) of this verse have been updated to include mentions of John André btw. Part three now also has a skype scene between André and Lafayette, so give them a reread!
> 
> Kudos and comments are really appreciated; thank you!


End file.
